As technology emerges into our daily lives, people are finding new ways to manipulate it to their advantage. Data mining is one of these new technologies that many people, including businesses, use to their advantage for many things, such as increasing sales or recognizing important patterns for their business. Data mining is the computational process of discovering patterns in large amounts of data and presenting them into useful information. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Data mining has many positives and negatives. Some positives include increasing sales and decreasing costs for businesses, providing financial institutions with more information about lending and credit reporting, and helping the government detect money laundering or criminal activity. Companies that use data mining can see what customers like and don't like, which allows them to modify products or change costs, which is beneficial to them and the consumer. Financial institutions such as banks using data mining can determine whether a person's credit history is good or bad, thus saving time and money and doing the customer a favor. Governments using data mining can spot fraudulent and criminal activity by recognizing patterns in a person's spending habits, which in return makes the world more ethical. All of these positives may seem positive, but there are also many negatives to consider when referring to data mining. One of these is privacy issues. Many people fear that their personal information is being collected and used inappropriately. With the increase of Internet forums and other websites that require registration and entry of personal information, this information can be sold to other companies for their own marketing purposes, which makes the consumer feel violated in terms of privacy . If companies store huge amounts of data, this data has the possibility of being breached or hacked. Hackers can access a huge amount of a company's data if they breach its business, resulting in the theft of credit cards and other financial information. This has happened to a couple of companies in the past, like Sony, and is one of the biggest downsides of storing large amounts of data. All the information that companies gain from data mining can be misused and exploited. For example, companies may find that consumers tend to rely on one product more than another, they may then increase the price of that product, meaning that consumers, like us, will have to pay more for this product. Therefore, there are many positives and negatives to data mining, but both affect our lives in one way or another. Data mining is an emerging technology that has already become a part of our lives without us realizing it. Many businesses use data mining to their advantage, especially grocery stores. Take Amazon for example, a huge e-commerce delivery service that continually uses data mining. They recommend products based on previous searches or transaction history. They get all this information from the products they purchase and use it to market more products. Grocery stores also use data mining. They occasionally send out coupons in the mail of products that are proven to sell and generate revenue, thus further increasing their revenue by offering coupons so that the consumer feels the..