A lot of people give Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. shit for "selling" user data although in my opinion acting as a matchmaker between advertisers and users does not really constitute selling data.

In contrast there seem to be a lot of companies that actually do sell user data that I never hear anyone here talking about.

who else has our data? so many people have a microsoft, google, or facebook product, so why would we blame someone so small?

@calmyourtities well I used CollegeBoard as an example because anyone who has attended a public University or lower education in the United States in the past 100 years has likely given them absurd amounts of information.

The college board only allows colleges to use the information in their student search service if the student voluntarily gives their information on the PSAT/SAT

@DuckyMcDuckFace oh, well my school gave all our info to google without our consent. fuck my life

They both do. One is just less known than the other.

One of my primary concerns is that the big companies (Google etc) are required (when in the US) to participate in the prism surveillance network, thus selling out all customers to a particular three letter agency.
That's why it bothers me more than companies selling email addresses to advertisers/third parties.