The age of data mining: What are the benefits?

In a recent CNN new article there was mention of a Chicago based company seeking "Predictive Modeling/Data Mining Scientists and Analysts" to work through November 2012 and given the company's political ties to President Obama it is rumored that these "scientist" will be active on the Obama 2012 election campaign. Now, I'm sure many of you are scratching your heads wondering what the heck data mining is and why is it so "scientific"?... Well, I'll explain, data mining is a new highly effective method of advertising by "mining" for data such as names, genders, birthdays, current cities, religions and political views we can target your customers more specifically and it doesn't stop there... we can also recover information about their friends and their friends friends allowing us to build a virtual profile of your customers. With Umbrelly's vast network of brands and partners, we are able to build a highly effective database of potential customers and by sharing that information across our network, It only gets better