Even if they didn't sell this information wholesale via data brokerages, your argument leaves open wiggle-room for claiming innocence while still monetizing the information via selling aggregate data.
This is something that is wholly uncovered in this whole debacle -- aggregate data (aka "anonymized" data ) is the cake beneath the icing. While Facebook et al may play nicely with regulators (and the general public) by quickly backing away from wholesale "unfiltered" data access, they can skirt the rules by providing "researchers" with anonymized data.
All of them want this anonymized data for their own analytics reporting to measure success metrics and most will walk away when the spigot is closed.
> they can skirt the rules by providing "researchers" with anonymized data.
Probably, given the many past cases of academics using this kind of data to demonstrate de-anonymization attacks, with some very special vetting of who the researchers are and where their loyalties lie.
This is something that is wholly uncovered in this whole debacle -- aggregate data (aka "anonymized" data ) is the cake beneath the icing. While Facebook et al may play nicely with regulators (and the general public) by quickly backing away from wholesale "unfiltered" data access, they can skirt the rules by providing "researchers" with anonymized data.
All of them want this anonymized data for their own analytics reporting to measure success metrics and most will walk away when the spigot is closed.