The authors present a pedagogical primer on the highly controversial business strategies of data mining and automated prediction. They provide a summary that allows business professors and students the opportunity to better understand the privacy and ethical issues that arise from high-tech, Internet-based organizations implementing programs to collect and analyze large quantities of personal data from the users of their systems, and then using this data to make assumptions and projections on individual behaviors. The teaching summary also includes a consideration of the role that governments can play in limiting the ability of large tech-based companies to mine personal information for commercial application.