<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>whoisburbansky</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a nice bit of semantic ju-jitsu to say &amp;quot;they take this data and sell a service that wouldn&amp;#x27;t be possible without it&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t the same as &amp;quot;selling this data,&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t it? Especially given that the targeting mechanisms don&amp;#x27;t have any k-anonymity guarantees, and I&amp;#x27;m aware of at least one paper showing information leaks through the ad portal [1]&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ftc.gov&amp;#x2F;system&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;public_events&amp;#x2F;1223263&amp;#x2F;p155407privacyconmislove_1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ftc.gov&amp;#x2F;system&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;documents&amp;#x2F;public_events&amp;#x2F;122...&lt;/a&gt;</text><parent_chain><item><author>jahlove</author><text>&amp;gt; Some apps, like Facebook, allow for some data tracking to be manually disabled. But by default, it is turned on. That gives the company reams of personal data on who we are and what we are doing, which it then vacuums up, packages and sells.&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that Facebook does not sell this data, but rather lets advertisers create hyper-targeted ads, which are only possible because of this data.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Certainly not trying to defend Facebook here (in the slightest).  Just trying to correct an inaccuracy in the article.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2021/02/26/971367875/why-is-facebook-launching-an-all-out-war-on-apples-upcoming-iphone-update?t=1614351654558</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Spooky23</author><text>&amp;quot;We never sell your data&amp;quot; is a meaningless statement. It&amp;#x27;s the online service equivalent of saying that a bottle of water is &amp;quot;fat free&amp;quot;. It is consistently and prominently written because it is a definitive statement. Facebook used to feature it on the signup screen with some other statements that sound principled like &amp;quot;We don&amp;#x27;t charge for Facebook, and we never will&amp;quot;, etc.&lt;p&gt;But when you parse out what it means you are left with something more accurately stated as: &amp;quot;&amp;lt;Company&amp;gt; will not sell its proprietary assets.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It sort of like the operator of a hotel saying &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t sell rooms&amp;quot;.</text><parent_chain><item><author>jahlove</author><text>&amp;gt; Some apps, like Facebook, allow for some data tracking to be manually disabled. But by default, it is turned on. That gives the company reams of personal data on who we are and what we are doing, which it then vacuums up, packages and sells.&lt;p&gt;My understanding is that Facebook does not sell this data, but rather lets advertisers create hyper-targeted ads, which are only possible because of this data.&lt;p&gt;Edit: Certainly not trying to defend Facebook here (in the slightest).  Just trying to correct an inaccuracy in the article.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2021/02/26/971367875/why-is-facebook-launching-an-all-out-war-on-apples-upcoming-iphone-update?t=1614351654558</url></story>