Data Mining

   I've been getting interested in data mining lately. I'm beginning to understand just how pervasive the practice is, and how data mining now plays a fundamental role in commerce. It's always helpful to understand terms. Here's dictionary.com on data mining: "the process of collecting, searching through, and analyzing a large amount of data in a database, as to discover patterns or relationships." But if you want a fuller, more nuanced explanation, try this UCLA site. You'll find out that data mining is as important to supermarkets as it is to the NBA.  If it's a contemporary venture of any significant size and it's engaged in commerce - not to mention national security -  data mining is of interest.
   My curiosity about data mining was deepened as I finished reading The Circle by Dave Eggers. The novel takes place largely on the campus of a fictional company named The Circle. It's scope and mission seem to parallel Google to a remarkable degree.  The Circle makes all sorts of products that help the consumer be more "social." (Of course their definition of "social" might be a bit different than yours or mine. To The Circle, being social means sharing interests, concerns, travels, relationships, etc. with others, both friends and strangers.) The cameras, personal recorders and software products are not only technologically advanced and elegant in design; they also gather data. The Circle's core mission is to become the world's repository of personal data. There are characters to follow and story lines to grab your attention, but beneath the narrative is an understanding that companies today, most especially Google, Facebook and Twitter, have become masters at gathering and utilizing personal data. (The Circle was reviewed in the NY Times on 11/1/13.)
   Google, Facebook and Twitter are interesting for two reasons. One is their success. They have become hugely profitable and important in large part on the basis of data mining. What helps them stand apart from so many other digital companies is they not only gather data; they also sell it or use it themselves.  Most other companies - and here we're talking about thousands, tens of thousands of companies - gather data and sell it to data aggregators.  These are companies that gather, combine and analyze data from multiple sources. 
   Recently (3/9/14), 60 Minutes did a story on these data aggregator companies. These data companies were termed "data brokers." It's a sobering look at the degree to which virtually all of us relinquish personal information unknowingly. Take a look if you have about 15 minutes to spare: The Data Brokers: Selling Your Personal Information. It's a very interesting story.
   Want to know more about how your data is being mined? Then you'll be interested in this story about Acxiom, one of the big names in the data mining field. Tools are available to allow yo to see for yourself how your web browsing and other online behaviors are being quantified for potential profit.