The ‘we don’t sell your data...but we do share it’ nuance
Google, Amazon and Facebook all say that they don’t ‘sell’ your data, but they do ‘share’ it with advertisers... to make tens of billions of pounds a year.
This is a completely legal way to phrase it, but it’s also pretty disingenuous. Google, for example, acknowledges that a ‘sale’ of data is occurring at some point, but says it’s the responsibility of each app and website when it happens. However, Google does two main things to facilitate the sale:
1. It uses data to build ‘data profiles’ on individuals and lets advertisers target groups of people based on these profiles.
2. It also allows real-time bidding (RTB); sites and apps auction off ad space and share personal data including geolocation, cookies, and browsing history to advertisers to bid on individual ads.
But, again, this isn’t ‘selling’ data.