Individual profiles are rarely sold directly[1], but some demographic is taken so that the publisher can sell your traffic at a higher rate. This is a good thing because it means they can make more money with less traffic, <i>which in turn means</i> that they don&#x27;t have to appeal to anybody and everybody. This is (hypothetically) where quality content comes from.<p>Unfortunately most of the ad industry is really crap at this.<p>For example, Oracle&#x2F;Bluekai leak `var bk_results` into the web page allowing anyone to pick up this data which means that this information can (and is) often used for much more than just better ads.<p>[1]: One notable space where they are sold is ABM. Unless you&#x27;re a decision maker for an enterprise supply budget, this isn&#x27;t you.