From the link that was already provided, and which is repeated in their Privacy FAQ: "Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data“ is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love."

That seems like a pretty reasonable justification to me

Nope. It seems like legalspeak to say "we sell your data" while making it sound like they don't.

Let me guess: chmod775 will not reply to this comment.

See my reply to you here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43205587

Honestly I'm surprised that a research technician is more interested in this style of "argument" rather than figuring out the meaning of a (very precisely worded) sentence to for its own sake.

It's an apt username for naively giving read access