Hate the game, not the player, basically.
The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”
I totally understand why the Act would use such vague wording and cast such a wide net, considering the underhanded actions of ad companies. But I also understand no longer feeling comfortable guaranteeing that nothing that could reasonably be argued to fall under this definiton would ever happen. Heck, I think some lawyers might argue that even just sending an anonymous GET request to any web server would qualify (disclosing personal information to a third party). Seems like the only way to stay fully compliant is to ship a browser with only an offline mode, haha.