Someone changed the title. The original submission title matched the article title [1]. Feels like an intentional re-characterization to place the blame on the ones purchasing the data, as opposed to the ones harvesting and selling. This journalist is the same who exposed Jumpshot [2] for similar tactics (selling highly-sensitive user-level data), and a few days later the entire company (~230 employees) shut down.

I asked about a similar problem [3] on a "Who's Hiring" last week to a YC-funded company and dang was quick to detach that comment, as it was off-topic for the context of the thread.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+...

[2] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdkq7/avast-antivirus-se...

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22229267