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Your web browser can command companies like Walmart or Pinterest not to blab what they know about your favorite breakfast cereal, email address or location.
This one-click privacy power is legally enforceable in some states, including California. But turning your phone or computer into an autopilot privacy fairy godmother remains the best privacy setting that hardly anyone uses - largely because Google and Apple don't like it.
They own Chrome and Safari, respectively, which are by far the most popular ways to use the web. Those browsers don't offer the easy way to tell companies not to sell or share your personal data.
A proposed add-on to California's privacy laws would have forced Google and Apple to give you this option. The companies didn't want it, and the legislation died last week.
The absence of this simple setting in technologies used by most Americans shows Big Tech's influence over your privacy. Even when you have the legal power to protect your data, Silicon Valley giants still decide whether it's easy or hard to exercise those rights.
You can make a different choice from the one Apple and Google make for you. I'll explain how.
• The progress and the flaws in your privacy rights
Without much action from Congress, the states are where big fights are happening to decide your privacy rights. Meaningful privacy laws have passed in recent years in 19 states, led by California.
This is real progress in protecting your data, but all the state laws are built on a rickety premise: You have a choice over what happens to your personal information - but saying no to companies doing whatever they want with your data is much harder than saying yes.
It's a lopsided choice, and data-gobbling companies fought to make it this way.
This flaw of privacy laws is why you see a gazillion cookie pop-up notices on websites. You have options, but it's so maddening that you just click "accept." Or you might need to fill out dozens of complicated forms to tell companies to delete information about you. Hardly anyone can do these endless chores.
But California established a clever idea in its privacy laws that has been copied elsewhere. You can appoint someone or something to exercise privacy rights on your behalf.
That privacy fairy godmother can just be a web browser, like Firefox on a computer or Android phone, Brave and DuckDuckGo. These will automatically tell any website you visit not to sell or share your personal information.
Or you can download add-on software like Privacy Badger (privacybadger.org) from the consumer advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. It also works in the background as you surf to order websites not to blab your data.
(Consumer Reports also has an app will also tell companies to keep your secrets or delete your data, though it's not as easy to use.)
Websites are or will soon be legally required to comply with these easy privacy commands in about a dozen states including California, Colorado, Montana, Connecticut and Oregon, privacy advocates say.
• What's missing from the list of privacy fairy godmothers
You might notice that the easy privacy options are all from tiny companies or nonprofits.
If you use Chrome, Safari or the Microsoft Edge web browsers, they don't have the one-click privacy opt-out choice that the small web browsers give you. You can't even download Privacy Badger to Safari or the built-in Chrome browser for Android phones. (EFF says it's working on adding Privacy Badger for Safari.)
Collectively, Americans use Chrome, Safari and Edge for about 90 percent of website visits, according to Cloudflare, which helps millions of websites manage their online traffic.
The reality is if Google, Apple and Microsoft don't go along, most people won't have the easy choice to tell companies not to blab your data.
That's why privacy advocates were excited about the proposed California legislation that would have forced Google and Apple to offer you simple ways to opt out of data blabbing in the web browsers and smartphones they control.
The proposed law was imperfect, but it recognized that privacy laws are only meaningful if you have an easy way to say no to companies selling or sharing your data, as Firefox and the other small browsers do.
Google was among the companies that publicly opposed the legislation and said it would hurt small businesses. Apple more quietly disliked it, according to advocates for the bill. Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed the proposed law.
Google said other websites and small businesses in California also "raised concerns about new government mandates." Apple, Microsoft and Newsom's office didn't respond to my questions.
Ashkan Soltani, who leads the California Privacy Protection Agency, said the state privacy watchdog would keep trying with the proposal to give you easy privacy options, no matter what technology you use.
"Ensuring that consumers benefit from opt-out preference signals is one of our agency's top priorities," Soltani said in a statement to The Washington Post. "Without them, it's a full-time job for consumers to opt-out at every business one-by-one."
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