[fwn]

Parents point is valid in so far as that selling really is the wrong term for it.

If Google sold the data, someone else would have it. That would not only be awful from a privacy perspective, it would be desasterous for business.

It's primarily a case for precise language and not something to ridicule.

[TangoTrotFox]

Like you mention one of the most obvious reasons that Google does not sell user information is because it would not make good business sense. These immense profiles they're building on everybody are part of their 'secret sauce' and simply selling those would not be good for business.

When they're choosing to not engage in behavior that no company in their shoes would engage in, it's hardly praise worthy and I think indeed that ridiculing it as a 'positive' for them is completely fair. So let's change the game a bit. If, somehow, their business changed or evolved such that selling user information directly was a profitable part of some business strategy - do you think they would still choose not to? What if I asked you, not that long ago, whether you think Google would be willing to build a search engine in China completely accepting (and thus arguably implicitly endorsing) all state level censorship engaged in by China?

I do think that Google at one time sincerely held the sort of anti-corporate-establishment view of 'don't be evil.' But it's much easier to moralize when you don't have the option of going against those morals to the tune of billions of dollars accompanied by immeasurable influence.

[nojvek]

Don’t be evil ship sailed a long time ago. They’ve demonstrated over and over again that their stock price matters more than privacy of their users.

The way I see it, it’s a race to trillion dollar mark for AMZN, GOOG and MSFT now.

I have little expectations that they’ll do much to reverse their ad blasting and deep tracking trends.

[visarga]

> the most obvious reasons that Google does not sell user information is because it would not make good business sense

On the contrary, it is a good business model and Google does it. They sell ad targeting, and targeting ads is based on accessing personal user data and making its results available to anybody who wants to pay. With each targeting of an ad the ad buyers can track more profiled users.

[joshuamorton]

(I work at Google).

"selling your user data" implies that someone else has access. They don't.

[jellicle]

If I target my ads to left-handed Hungarian mimes, and someone clicks on that ad and comes to my site, what do I know about that person? What user data has Google told me about them?

I provided money to Google. Google provided [people, or perhaps bots] and told me they were left-handed Hungarian mimes. The user's information has passed from Google to me. I just tagged that person "left-handed Hungarian mime" in my database.

Now, you can invent new words and call that something other than a sale, but...

The tech industry is great. Package up software, give it a SKU, put it in a store, have people come in, exchange money for it, and walk out: They're very happy to call that a sale, not a license, but a license is what it is. Happy to use the word "sale" when it confuses the customer and benefits them.

But start talking about selling user data to advertisers, nope, don't like the word "sale" any more, even though the advertisers are handing over money and walking away with data they are free to use. Odd.

[joshuamorton]

Ok but is anyone doing that? Even if technically possible is that a violation of the ToS? (I don't know the answer to either of these questions, but I expect that the answer leans towards "no" for both).

>If I target my ads to left-handed Hungarian mimes, and someone clicks on that ad and comes to my site, what do I know about that person?

Nothing, unless they register there, and if your goal is to convert left-handed Hungarian mimes, then you probably know about your target audience already. You've learned something about a tracking cookie. That's only valuable if you can continue to track the user.

[mattkevan]

They don't sell our data, they rent us out to the highest bidder.

More data means they can match us to clients better and charge a higher price for us.

[nojvek]

This captures Google’s and FB’s business model perfectly.

Not matter how you sugarcoat it, if you work for Google or FB or any other ad blasting company, you help further the model of selling data of people’s private lives to the highest bidder and ad spam them throughout the internet for months.