Web of Trust caught selling private browsing history of millions (opens in new tab)

Here is what the WOT terms of service say about sharing their users' browsing data:

  The information we collect is aggregated, non-personal non-identifiable information which may be made available or gathered via the users' use of the WOT Utilities ("Non-Personal Information"). We are not aware of the identity of the user from which the Non-Personal Information is collected. We may disclose or share this information with third parties as specified below and solely if applicable. We collect the following Non-Personal Information from you when you install or use the Product or use the WOT Platform:
  
     Your Internet Protocol Address;
     Your geographic location (e.g., France, Canada, etc.);
     The type of device, operating system and browsers you use;
     Date and time stamp;
     Browsing usage, including visited web pages, clickstream data or web address accessed;
     Browser identifier and user ID;

You're absolutely right that this needs to be shared out. Many of the things we do in apps on mobile we do via web browsers on a computer. This means that the browser is a single point of convergence for tons of data, and browser plugins can capture this data and monetize it. While it may be possible to monetize purely in an anonymized way (which might not bother some users), some plugins do use individual data to target ads.

I've been asked to insert tracking code into my startup's browser plugin (with a lowly 75k users) for this purpose, and the $$$ was tempting. It would have paid more in a year than we've made off of all our individual paid accounts—plus we wouldn't have had to build a payment infrastructure. We're very pro-privacy, so it was a definite "no" for us, but I can see how other folks might have gone for it.

It's pretty ironic that a company with a name like "Web of Trust" ended up going this route. Hopefully they can pull themselves back from the dark side and earn back their customers' trust.