If imgur has to buy profiling data from someone else, it isn't really their data is it? That is, imgur could not recreate that same data alone, they need the partner who can get the missing data from the rest of the partner's network.

The bottom line is imgur's data is probably not worth much, what _is_ worth a lot is imgurs traffic, and that traffic is taking a hit from adblock.

They can play the old switcharoo and sell the data to that vendor.