I bought a car earlier this year. Exciting purchase. We had got to the final bit before they hand over the keys and there was some paperwork to sign. On page 3 was the small print about us agreeing to give our data to everyone.

So I refused and made it clear I would walk away. The sales guy went though the whole ‘it’s not a problem, I’ve bought cars from here and haven’t got spammed’. In the end he had to get a manager and it turned out that the option could be removed from the contract, three menus down in the system.

Sounds like no one had ever asked before. I imagine GDPR will have changed this to opt-in.

> You can't even opt out

I scratched that, and other lines, out of my rental agreement when I rented my New York apartment. The landlord agreed.

I wonder, do they then just enter your data into their database and sell it all anyway? Is there some way for you to ensure it's not included in all the other tenant data they share?