Some years ago an engineer at Google told me why Google wasn't collecting information linked to people's names. It's not just about Big Data.

Not long ago, I was at a dinner with the chief executive of a large bank. Not long ago, a woman in Tacoma, Wash., received a suggestion from Facebook that she "friend" another woman. Not long ago, I sent a dozen friends an electronic invitation to a party.

If you asked me to describe the rising philosophy of the day, I'd say it is data-ism.

The idea of big data goes something like this: "I am [...]

If you think of all the information encoded in the universe from your genome to the furthest star, from the information that's already there, codified or un-codified, to the information pregnant in every interaction, "big" has become the measure of data. And our capacity to produce and collect Big Data in the digital age is very big indeed. Every day, we produce 2.5 exabytes of information, the analysis of which will, supposedly, make us healthier, wiser, and above all, wealthier—although it's all a bit fuzzy as to what, exactly, we're supposed to do with 2.5 exabytes of data—or how we're supposed to do whatever it is that we're supposed to [...]