[dalbasal]

So, this in no way justifies what Meetup.com is (allegedly) doing. It sounds like a very bad business decision, besides being morally questionable.

However... stuff like this is quite normal a few steps up the big-fish, little-fish food web. Even very restrictive regimes allow data to sell with a company. Since company structure is malleable, a lot of acquisitions can be structured that way.

The proverbial meetup organizer organizes her meetups as a company, then sells that company. Such structuring can often be done on the fly, between offer and closing. In non-proverbial land, Meetup.com itself is likely to be the legal owner of the customer relationship. It is meeting organizers' access to data that is questionable, assuming restrictions exist.

The most restrictive examples are usually regulated markets. Casino regulators, for example, mostly issue licenses. The "licensed entity" is not so malleable, because the regulator gets to approve/relicense sales. In practice though, having a regulator involved doesn't change that much. Online casinos, big and small, get sold and the data follows one way or another.