In recent remarks to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Apple's CEO Tim Cook declared that "people have a fundamental right to privacy." He has begun an assault on the business model of Big Data as currently shaped by Internet giants Google and Facebook.

It was Eric Schmidt, while CEO of Google, who famously pronounced the death of online privacy in 2009, telling people "if you have something to hide, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Under Schmidt's watch, Google launched Gmail in 2005, perfecting the business model of providing a free service in exchange for access to user data. With Mark Zuckerberg at its helm, Facebook has pushed the boundaries of using data collected from its users, such as personalizing advertising copy by including images of your friends, and pushing automatic posts to your social network when you play a song on Spotify.