One way to avoid the California Consumer Privacy Act is to claim that you don’t sell data. This is what Google has seemingly done.
Google monetizes what it observes about people in two major ways: It uses data to build individual profiles with demographics and interests, then lets advertisers target groups of people based on those traits. It shares data with advertisers directly and asks them to bid on individual ads.
As I tweeted yesterday, there is no difference between selling “access” to data and selling data “directly.” In both scenarios, people are products for advertisers. Although I’m sure lawsuits have been won and lost on lesser technicalities.
Check It Out: Google: “We Don’t Sell Your Data, We Just Monetize It”
Ah, so our data are not being sold, they’re being monetised. What a relief. I feel better already.
When corporations, politicians, or any official or spokesperson in the private or public sector says such things as this in the public domain, the message is ever the same; they think that the public are stupid. And even if an inattentive or uncaring few let such comments fly over their heads, a majority do not, are insulted by them and, when, not if, the time comes when that entity needs the public’s benefit of the doubt or outright support, and it is not forthcoming, some of these same entities will feel hard done by and will find some scapegoat to blame on their way out the door and into oblivion.
This is one of the unintended benefits of social media, that such appalling behaviour can be called out in realtime, and in the public domain, just as you’ve done.