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Comment by ronzensci | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't Google Search/Gmail/Twitter -- all need to register themselves as Data Brokers?

See the response by hbcondo714

> a “data broker” is in the business of aggregating and selling data about consumers with whom the business does not have a direct relationship

Google is aggregating search queries. And they are selling my search query to the highest bidder with whom I'm not having a direct relationship. That sounds like a search broker to me.

If you use Google to search (or use Chrome or gmail or...) then you have a direct relationship with Google, meaning Google is not a data broker.

"Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, beginning January 1, 2020, among other things, grants a consumer a right to request a business to disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information that it collects about the consumer, the categories of sources from which that information is collected, the business purposes for collecting or selling the information, and the categories of third parties with which the information is shared."

The new law requires companies to tell us who are they sharing our personal information with. Applying common sense law -- this sounds like anyone who sells my personal information to a third party with whom I'm not having a direct relationship - that gets covered.

The Ad I see on the top of my search query seems based on personal information that was sold to a third party.

The ad you see in the search results was put their by google after an advertiser said “advertise to someone who searches for X, and also likes hacker news”. Google wouldn’t share that data to the advertiser. Once you click the ad... that’s another story.

Does clicking on a link to a Google.com URL create a consensual relationship with whoever Google.com redirects to? That seems absurd.

Why else would you click on the link, except to go to the website of the business at the other end?

Certainly visiting the website of a business is a consented action, when you were searching, and then clicked a link, for relevant keywords to that business.

The law has a lot of requirements for every company that collects data about you. It has additional requirements for companies that are data brokers. The quote you provided is about the former. The list linked in this post is about the latter.

Correct. While this law certainly enables you to send “nightmare letters” and generally make yourself a PIA for Google and all other companies, it does not require them to register as a data broker because of the consumer’s direct relationship with them.

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