Well.. it's possible that someone paid good money to learn about that account and then did not try to sell me anything. Do you think that's likely?

It's not 2004, Google has more ways beyond just Gmail to hoover up behavioral data to feed its ad platform. There's Android OS, Chrome, Maps, Youtube and Google Analytics. You live in a panopticon, you just don't know it.

Sure Google advertises. What about that? GP didn't write "advertises" but rather "sells your data".