What Is Big Data?

The phenomenon of big data is a relatively recent development that started because companies as a whole started together increasing amounts of data about its users. Every scrap of information in your Gmail account, YouTube, and even in every Google search you do is recorded, cataloged, and used to build a psychological profile on you. In a way, I suspect this is how things have become so one-sided where truly corporations have most of the power in the world. The government doesn't have a time machine nor does the government have the best and the brightest among us or the most technological, but corporations do.