Google, Microsoft, et al continue to perfect their search engines – but too often search is not enough. The watchword today is “discovery” – where you don’t just search for information, but information finds you.

As survey results pile up, it’s becoming clear Australians are sceptical about how their online data is tracked and used. But one question worth asking is: are our fears founded? The short answer is: yes.

In co-operation with IDM, Information Management Solution Provider Fastman recently conducted a study to look into how companies across Asia-Pacific manage, store and protect their unstructured enterprise information. Organisations in the services, consumer, government, healthcare, financial and technology sectors were surveyed to find out the current trends for managing and securing big data.

Today it costs a fraction of a fraction of a cent per megabyte to store data, but it is less than 30 years since the cost of data storage dropped below one US dollar per megabyte. It seems that one dollar was a psychologically important price point as, from then on, the world economy significantly shifted to capturing, valuing and transacting on information.