Shop at Amazon.com and one automatically receives recommendations on books and other items based on previous queries and purchases. Similarly, checking a Facebook entry causes ads for local products and services to pop up.
These automatic ads and messages are the product of "big data," an industry that collects and analyzes personal information ranging from email, social media posts and other data culled from the Internet.
The allure of big data and the power it offers to those who possess it has been making headlines, thanks to Edward Snowden, the whistle-blowing U.S. computer technician once employed by a National Security Agency contractor who recently revealed that the United States government is spying on its own people by secretly sucking up their personal data from U.S. Internet companies — ostensibly to defend America from foreign threats.