A new privacy audit by webXray reveals that Google, Meta, and Microsoft frequently ignore user opt-out requests, potentially violating the California Consumer Privacy Act across thousands of websites.

Key Points

• The webXray audit analyzed web traffic from over 7,000 popular websites in California during March.
• Researchers found that 55 percent of tested sites set advertising cookies despite users opting out of tracking.
• Google failed to honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) opt-out signals in 87 percent of observed instances.
• Meta’s tracking code reportedly lacks any mechanism to detect or respect GPC signals, loading unconditionally on websites.
• Microsoft recorded a 50 percent failure rate in honoring user privacy preferences during the audit period.
• All three companies have disputed the findings, with Google claiming the report misinterprets its technical operations.

Why it Matters

This audit highlights a significant gap between consumer privacy expectations and the actual enforcement of the California Consumer Privacy Act. If these findings are validated by regulators, the companies could face substantial financial penalties for failing to respect standardized opt-out signals.