A plain fact that requires looking realistically at how colloquialisms are used combined with a little bit of technical know how. How many businesses do you know actually "sell data"? The only market I can think of are companies like Zoominfo. Outside of that there really aren't that many companies that "sell your data". However, you'll see a ton of social justice campaigns against "stop companies selling your data". They aren't going after Zoominfo, they're going after Facebook.
Does facebook capture data? Yes.
Do they literally take that data and sell it byte for byte to other people? No.
Is that data absolutely necessary to sell their products or services? Yes.
So, in effect, its easier to say to the common person "they're selling your data" than "they're harvesting their data so they can sell products and services". Facebook is trying to defend itself in the public eye by responding to this slogan - not by the real factor that matters.
There are thousands of companies like ZoomInfo. They all trade csvs of data of dubious origins, mash and resell it to the highest bidder. There is a tranche of these companies who build algorithms to do fuzzy linking between huge datasets, including sources like data breaches (where name/address info is included).
There are conferences. Much of the data can be obtained as Salesforce "apps" - connect your CRM to our massive data portal and we'll fill in information that you don't have. The biggest of these is owned by SF and called Data.com.
Not to hand waive away anyone's pre-baked hatred of Google/FB/etc., but there is an actual data industry that does buy and sell your data, with no controls over it and what it can be used for. By comparison, FB and Google are much better stewards.
A plain fact that requires looking realistically at how colloquialisms are used combined with a little bit of technical know how. How many businesses do you know actually "sell data"? The only market I can think of are companies like Zoominfo. Outside of that there really aren't that many companies that "sell your data". However, you'll see a ton of social justice campaigns against "stop companies selling your data". They aren't going after Zoominfo, they're going after Facebook.
Does facebook capture data? Yes.
Do they literally take that data and sell it byte for byte to other people? No.
Is that data absolutely necessary to sell their products or services? Yes.
So, in effect, its easier to say to the common person "they're selling your data" than "they're harvesting their data so they can sell products and services". Facebook is trying to defend itself in the public eye by responding to this slogan - not by the real factor that matters.