Bill Gates wants you

It seems fitting that -- in light of the National Security Agency's revelation that it is monitoring phone calls in the US -- Microsoft has hired Rakesh Agrawal, according to a recent story in News.com.  Agrawal is a thought leader in data mining and spent years at IBM developing his techniques. Now, he'll be working at Microsoft Search Labs.

Basically, data mining is a way to look at our personal information and provide companies with ways to sell us more stuff. It certainly a huge opportunity -- and there are terabytes and terabytes of our personal data sitting idle in corporate databases.  Might as well take advantage of this, right?

Agrawal has 45 patents and helped develop IBM's data mining product, Intelligent Miner.

Bill Gates definitely knows how to monetize technology -- and, no doubt, over the years, we're likely to see more data mining.  But, given this touches our personal information, might customers feel creeped-out with all this?  Maybe besides hiring these high-priest tech types, perhaps Microsoft should spend money on some privacy experts, as well?