Surprised something like this hasn't happened sooner. That social networks like FB sell personal user data to advertisers is the industry's worst-kept secret.
At least now they're dropping any pretense that they give a rat's ass about privacy.
At least now they're dropping any pretense that they give a rat's ass about privacy.
(It went much deeper than that - marital status, month of year, a few other things I can't remember). So, while they weren't directly offering and selling this information as is, you could buy it from them by buying ad space on the demographics you cared about. (Yes, this also required you had other access to ad networks, real time exchanges, etc -- but if you really want info on people, it was chump change)
I'm not sure how you would define "sell data", but other advertisers are using that data for targeting at scale already.
Also, like ryanmerket said: Facebook doesn't sell data, you are just misinformed.