Anti-Virus, Network Security, Firewalls, and Protection

Exposing Your Data on the Internet

While I do not know someone who has personally been violated by the process of data mining, I recognize the potential danger in the process of collecting data for purposes like marketing. On the surface, data mining is harmless. Organizations or interested individuals simply collect and sort through data. Usually the purpose of data mining is "to identify patterns and establish relationships," such as the relationships between demographic features and consumer behavior or voting patterns (Rouse, n.d.). Some of the potential uses of data mining include the identification of patterns of behavior in one individual or a group, classification of patterns, forecasting, and clustering (Rouse, n.d.). The interesting thing about data mining is that the information does not have to be personalized, which is why data mining is legal and not even considered unethical in many cases. However, data mining can be personal. Data mining allows for the extrapolation of data from information that was voluntarily provided when filling out forms online or making purchases. "Data mining allows companies and governments to use the information you provide to reveal more than you think," (Furnas, 2012). While data mining might not necessarily mean identity theft, it does raise questions about privacy and information security.

Facebook and other social media networks offer rich opportunities for data mining. The users of social media networks volunteer an abundance of information about their daily lives, interests, and behaviors. Users volunteer information about where they went to school, where they live, where they work, what foods they like, and where they have traveled. Moreover, their friends and connections online have also volunteered information. Using the data gathered from mining software, organizations can glean information about consumer behavior in ways that were never before possible.