The distinction is very much blurred, and there is much more profitable way to use data than getting people to voluntarily buy more toilet bowl cleaner.

Companies can use it to determine voting patters and sell that to interested political parties. Government are made from political parties and can steer money to those parties, thus the data can now be sold indirectly to the government.

Companies can use it to indirectly target competitors through their customers. Creating a monopoly is much more profitable than just selling more products. Gaining favors with political parties in the above strategy can also help here.

Companies can sell data to governments of other countries. Just because your own government has laws that forbids it, it doesn't mean other countries has the same laws or will treat the citizens of your country as their own. Trade like this can also occur in multiple steps. Company sell data to country A, and country A shares/sells it to your own government. Your own government might finds this preferable to buy it directly as laws may not apply to data shared/bought, even if that data is about their own citizens.

Selling personal data to the government is profitable, but there are also other interested parties. People in legal disputes may want information about the other side, or the juries, or even the judge. Companies that want to do industry espionage would want to buy information about other companies employees. Criminal organizations very much like to buy information about vulnerable people like the elderly. Again, the data doesn't need to be sold directly but can go through many hands until it finally reach the most scummy buyers, and the money will slowly trickle upwards to the seller.

As long as someone collects the data and is willing to sell it to someone, sooner or later it will be sold/leaked to someone who shouldn't have it. That is the fundamental issue with companies collecting personal information.