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You don't call up Facebook and ask for a few TB of data. You use ad targeting services which are essentially an abstraction on top of a personal data aggregation and analysis system.

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Right, Facebook’s ability to make money comes from how well it keeps user data secret, so it can sell abstracted access to advertisers.

It's selling data with extra steps, still selling data.

That's just obtuse. It’s clearly not selling user data at all. When I buy FB ads I cannot not get any user data. I can pick they type of user I want to see my advert, but I cannot know who they are.

If you have a FB account you can try this and see for yourself right now for a few bucks.

But maybe I'm wrong. Can tell me how they do sell user data?

You're correct. If they sold the data, then they would sell themselves out of their own market.

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