What does it actually mean when a company says, “We do not sell your data”?

You’ve likely run into this claim from tech giants before: “We do not sell your personal data.” Companies from Facebook to Google to Twitter repeat versions of this statement in their privacy policies, public statements, and congressional testimony. And when taken very literally, the promise is true: Despite gathering masses of personal data on their users and converting that data into billions of dollars in profits, these tech giants do not directly sell their users’ in