California DROP: Delete Your Data From 600+ Brokers Free
California DROP Is Live: Request Deletion From 600+ Data Brokers for Free
California residents now have a state-built tool for telling hundreds of registered data brokers to delete qualifying personal information. We think that is good for consumers - even if some businesses, including parts of the real estate industry, may find it inconvenient.
What California DROP actually does
DROP stands for Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform. It was created under California's Delete Act to give residents one centralized way to request deletion of personal information held by registered data brokers.
Instead of identifying hundreds of data brokers, visiting their websites one at a time, finding their privacy forms and repeatedly submitting individual requests, California created one state-run mechanism.
If a broker can match your DROP information to its records, it generally must delete the associated non-exempt personal information it can identify. California specifically says that can include inferences - assumptions or profiles a broker has developed about you based on other information.
CalPrivacy says those inferences may include things such as interests, financial status, family details and even sensitive topics. That is why DROP is more significant than simply removing an old phone number from an online directory.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we see DROP as a consumer-control tool first. Real estate is only one example of why the underlying data matters.
There is a difference between raising your hand and being turned into a lead
Businesses need customers. Advertising is not inherently bad. Lead generation is not inherently bad either.
But we think there is a very clear difference between a consumer intentionally asking to be contacted and a consumer discovering that information they provided somewhere else has traveled through an ecosystem they never really understood.
"Please call me."
You click an ad for a home valuation, enter your phone number and explicitly ask a real estate professional to contact you. You raised your hand. The resulting call is connected to the service you requested.
"I only signed up for this."
You give a company your email for a newsletter, account or other specific service. California says DROP generally does not delete information that you gave that business directly, although other privacy rights may still apply.
"Who are you and how do you know that?"
A company you never knowingly dealt with has your name, number, address, interests or other profile information and markets or sells it to another business. That is the data-broker problem DROP is specifically designed to address.
A newsletter is not automatically a callback request
CalPrivacy specifically uses newsletter signups as an example of information a company may have collected directly. DROP may require a qualifying data broker to delete information it obtained about you from other sources, while allowing it to retain certain information you gave it directly. That distinction matters.
For comparison, if someone intentionally wants an All Elite Homes valuation conversation, they can request a Fresno-area home value review directly from us . That person knows which company they are contacting and why.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, our preferred line is simple: if you intentionally ask us to call, we should call. If you never asked to hear from us, your personal information should not automatically become permission to interrupt you.
The uncomfortable truth: real estate agents are major consumers of other people's data
Real estate agents may feel like the service provider in a transaction, but we are also customers in an enormous business-to-business marketplace.
Agents are constantly pitched products: buyer leads, seller leads, homeowner records, appointments, "motivated sellers," referral opportunities, expired-listing data, prospecting lists and databases built around who might be likely to move.
Consumers are being marketed to. Agents are being marketed the consumers.
We have personally been pitched lead arrangements where a company supplies consumer information and expects a referral fee of around 20% of the agent-side commission if a transaction eventually closes. We have encountered arrangements that attempt to preserve that referral claim for multiple years.
The exact percentage, duration and terms vary by vendor. We are not suggesting every real estate lead provider operates this way, nor are we making a legal conclusion about any particular referral model.
What bothers us is the transparency problem.
A lead company has "John Q. Public." It may have a phone number, an address, a homeowner signal or some indication that John could be interested in real estate. An agent may be told that if John eventually transacts, a percentage of the agent's compensation is owed back to the lead company.
John may have no idea what financial agreement is attached to his name, how his information reached that company, whether the information is current, or how many businesses have received something similar.
That does not mean referral fees themselves are the problem. Real estate professionals refer clients to other professionals all the time. The concern is when the human being at the center of the transaction does not clearly understand how the relationship started.
New agents can get caught in this system too
A new real estate agent may hear "exclusive seller lead" or "motivated homeowner" and reasonably assume a consumer explicitly requested an agent. Sometimes the underlying relationship is much less clear. The consumer gets unwanted calls, the agent spends money chasing someone who never wanted help, and the vendor monetizes the connection.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we think agents deserve transparency about what they are buying just as much as consumers deserve transparency about where their information is going.
Why DROP matters to homeowners who keep getting "cash offer" calls
If you own a home in Fresno, Clovis or elsewhere in the Central Valley, you have probably encountered some version of this:
"Would you consider a cash offer for your property?"
You did not request a valuation. You did not list the property. You may not even be thinking about moving. Someone simply has enough information to know that contacting you might be worth a shot.
I get these calls too. My number is public because I am a real estate agent, so being reachable comes with the territory. But some of the calls are not people looking for real estate help. They are virtual assistants or telemarketers asking whether I want to sell my own house.
Because I work in the industry, I will sometimes let the conversation continue.
I ask: Who is the agent? Which brokerage? What team are you calling for? Where did you get my information?
Sometimes the caller will not tell me. The goal is simply to schedule another call. The phone number may change the next time.
If someone who works in real estate cannot easily identify who is actually behind the solicitation, the average homeowner should not be expected to untangle the system.
This is where DROP can help upstream. If qualifying information about you is circulating through covered registered data brokers, a DROP request may reduce the amount of that personal information available for sale.
But we need to be equally clear about the limitation: DROP is not a universal "stop cash buyers from calling me" switch.
Real estate ownership itself can appear in public records, and CalPrivacy specifically lists real estate ownership records among information that may be exempt from deletion. A caller may also obtain information from a source that is not covered by DROP.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we would rather explain that limitation clearly than oversell DROP as a magic spam blocker. It is powerful, but it has a defined scope.
Real estate advertising already recognizes that some targeting crosses a line
Think about Meta for a moment. Facebook and Instagram feel like social platforms to users, but advertising is a central part of Meta's business model. Consumer attention and the ability to connect advertisers with audiences are enormously valuable.
Housing advertising is different from many other categories. Meta applies additional restrictions to housing-related advertising, including restrictions involving age, gender, ZIP or postal-code targeting and certain audience exclusions.
HUD has also made clear that online advertising tools can create Fair Housing Act problems when targeting or delivery unlawfully denies people information about housing based on protected characteristics.
That creates an interesting tension: a real estate advertiser may face significant restrictions on how it can directly target consumers, while agents are simultaneously marketed consumer lists, profiles, referral opportunities and lead products created elsewhere in the data ecosystem.
A third-party list is not a fair-housing loophole
Buying a list from someone else does not remove an agent's legal or ethical obligations. We do not get to outsource discriminatory targeting to a spreadsheet.
For consumers evaluating agents, we have a separate guide on choosing a Fresno Realtor based on transparency, reputation and behavior .
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we believe sophisticated marketing should increase relevance without erasing the consumer's right to understand why they are being contacted.
California gave residents a free option people often pay a privacy service to automate
Consumers outside California do not necessarily have to pay a company to opt out of data brokers. They can often submit individual requests themselves, and privacy rights vary by state. Paid services such as Incogni and DeleteMe primarily make that process easier by automating or managing removals across many sites.
| Comparison | California DROP | Incogni Standard | DeleteMe Solo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $7.99/month when billed annually; $95.88/year | $10.75/month when billed annually; $129/year |
| Who it is for | Eligible California residents | Commercial service with broader geographic availability | Commercial service; current U.S. solo plan shown here |
| Core coverage | All active registered California data brokers included in DROP unless the consumer narrows the request; currently 600+ | 420+ automated data-broker sites on the current Standard plan | Ongoing removals from major data-broker and people-search sites; exact coverage varies by plan |
| Recurring work | One request can continue applying as registered brokers process records on a rolling basis | Recurring automated removals while subscribed | Scans and removals throughout the subscription period |
| Government mandate | Yes. Covered registered brokers have legal DROP obligations | No. Service submits removal or opt-out requests using applicable laws and broker procedures | No. Service manages removal requests using applicable laws and site procedures |
| Public records | Does not erase underlying exempt public records | May remove listings derived from public data, but cannot erase the underlying lawful public record itself | May remove people-search listings, but cannot erase the underlying lawful public record itself |
| Best starting point for a Californian | Use this first. It is free. | Potentially useful for broader cleanup outside DROP's scope | Potentially useful for broader people-search and ongoing removal work |
Comparison verified August 10, 2026. Commercial pricing, coverage, plans and California administrative procedures can change. Examples are provided for consumer education, not as endorsements of a specific paid privacy service.
The point is not that DROP makes Incogni, DeleteMe or every other privacy service unnecessary. Their coverage and services are different.
The point is simpler:
Before a California resident pays someone to remove information from data brokers, they should know what California already provides for free.
CalPrivacy describes DROP as the first platform of its kind and says California is the first jurisdiction in the world to provide a centralized tool like this.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, California gets criticized for plenty of regulation. We are comfortable giving credit where it is due: this is a genuinely useful consumer tool.
What DROP will not delete
DROP is substantial. It is not an internet eraser.
Publicly available information
CalPrivacy identifies public records such as real estate ownership, vehicle ownership and voting records as examples of information that may be exempt.
Information you gave a business directly
If you intentionally interacted with a business and gave it information directly, DROP generally does not require that first-party information to disappear simply because you submitted a DROP request.
Legally exempt information
Certain records may be governed by other laws or specific exemptions, including some health, credit, financial, investigative and public-record information.
Records the broker cannot confidently identify
If a broker cannot match your DROP information precisely enough, it may report an opt-out or record-not-found status rather than deletion. Adding more identifying information may improve matching.
Do not promise yourself zero spam tomorrow
DROP may help reduce the personal data being sold through covered brokers, and CalPrivacy itself identifies reduced unwanted calls, texts and emails as a potential benefit. But solicitations can originate from public records, first-party relationships, non-covered sources or businesses that are not following the rules.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we think DROP becomes more credible when its limitations are explained alongside its benefits.
How to sign up for California DROP
The current process is straightforward. CalPrivacy says DROP is free, and California has stated that signing up typically takes less than 10 minutes.
Signup steps verified August 10, 2026:
Verify that you are a California resident
DROP uses the California Identity Gateway. You can currently verify residency by entering basic personal information or by using Login.gov if you already have an account.
Create your DROP profile
California currently requires your name, date of birth and ZIP code to submit a request. You can also provide information such as email addresses and phone numbers. Additional optional identifiers can improve the chance that brokers find a matching record.
Submit the deletion request and save your DROP ID
Review the information, submit the request and keep the DROP ID from your confirmation page. You can use it to check your request status later.
After submission, registered data brokers must access and process DROP requests on a recurring schedule beginning August 1, 2026. CalPrivacy notes that brokers can take up to 90 days to report how a request was processed. You can return later to add information if your name, number, email, vehicle or other identifiers change.
Important update disclaimer
DROP was created pursuant to California's Delete Act, and current data-broker obligations are established through California law and regulation. Laws can be amended, however, and the administrative method for using DROP may change over time. The website, verification process, information requested, status labels or other procedures may be updated after this article is published.
For questions specifically about DROP or for the most current signup instructions, use the official California Privacy Protection Agency resource at privacy.ca.gov/drop .
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we recommend using the official state portal rather than relying on an old screenshot, social post or third-party walkthrough if the signup process changes.
Yes, a real estate company is telling you how to make your data harder to sell
We think DROP is good for California residents.
We also think it can be good for good real estate businesses.
That may sound unusual. Consumer data is valuable. Real estate agents spend enormous amounts of money trying to find people who may buy or sell a home.
But that is not the business model we want to depend on.
We would rather earn the phone call than buy our way onto the call list.
Our website currently reports a 78% repeat-and-referral rate. That does not mean All Elite Homes never advertises. We do. It means reputation, relationships and people intentionally choosing to work with us are central to how we want our business to grow.
If fewer consumers are unknowingly packaged as leads, fewer agents waste time and money chasing people who never wanted to hear from them. That pushes the industry toward something healthier: reputation, referrals, useful information and conversations consumers actually choose to have.
A homeowner is a person, not somebody else's lead inventory.
And a phone number being available does not mean the person volunteered to become a sales lead.
Across our team at All Elite Homes, we value our clients, our reputation and the referrals that come from doing good work. If DROP makes it harder to build a real estate business by purchasing access to people who never asked to be contacted, we are comfortable with that.
Questions California residents are likely to ask
Across our team at All Elite Homes, these are the distinctions we think Californians should understand before assuming DROP either does nothing or solves everything.
Is California DROP really free?
Yes. The California Privacy Protection Agency states that DROP is free for eligible California residents. You do not need to subscribe to a commercial data-removal service to submit a DROP request.
Will DROP stop cash-offer calls about my house?
It may reduce some unwanted marketing if covered data brokers were supplying information used for those solicitations, but it cannot promise that all calls will stop. Homeownership can appear in public records, callers may use first-party information, and not every source of a solicitation is necessarily a covered data broker.
Does DROP remove my homeownership information from public records?
No. CalPrivacy specifically identifies public records, including real estate ownership records, as information that can be exempt from deletion. DROP may remove other qualifying personal information and inferences held by covered brokers, but it does not erase the underlying government property record.
What if I gave my information directly to a company?
DROP generally does not require a company to delete information you provided to that company directly as part of a first-party relationship. CalPrivacy gives signing up for a newsletter as one example. Other California privacy-request rights may still apply to that information.
Is DROP basically a free version of Incogni or DeleteMe?
There is meaningful overlap, but they are not identical. DROP is a California government mechanism covering active registered data brokers subject to the state's requirements. Commercial services may cover additional people-search sites, databases or jurisdictions and may perform other ongoing removal work. For Californians, DROP is a logical free first step before deciding whether broader paid removal is worthwhile.
Do I need to submit a new DROP request every 45 days?
No. The 45-day requirement is primarily a recurring obligation on covered data brokers to access and process DROP information. CalPrivacy says a consumer does not need to continually file a brand-new request, although you can update your profile when identifying information changes or if you want to improve matching.
How long does a DROP request take?
Processing is not necessarily immediate. Data brokers began processing DROP requests August 1, 2026 and must access the mechanism at least every 45 days. CalPrivacy states that brokers may take up to 90 days to report how a request was processed, and updated information can also take up to roughly three months to process.
Your information should not decide when the real estate conversation starts. You should.
If you want fewer companies deciding when you are a sales lead, start with California DROP.
If you actually want to talk about buying, selling or understanding the value of a Fresno or Clovis home, we would love to hear from you.
That is the point: you get to decide when the conversation starts.
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