Startup investors fret over risks of mass data collection

Every action, interaction, question and decision by consumers generates data, and making sense of it — or data analytics — is becoming a big business.

SANTA BARBARA, California: Nearly every technology startup wants the same thing: more data. 

But in the rush to collect all manner of information about customers, tensions are rising in Silicon Valley over whether such practices amount to a form of surveillance that customers will ultimately find invasive.