What is the fastest growing part of the American economy today? The answer is the gathering, analysing and selling of our digital data.

The extraction of Americans’ personal data — the most valuable resource in the world today — is worth a whopping $76bn in yearly revenue not just for the usual Big Tech suspects, but a lot of other companies, according to a new study commissioned by the Democratic strategy group Future Majority.

The study, which was conducted by the economic and security analysis group Sonecon, found that sales derived from data harvesting have grown by 44.9 per cent over the past two years. That’s faster than in the online publishing, data processing and information services industry itself, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. That category has a two-year growth rate of 24 per cent. If the current trends hold, our data will be worth $197.7bn by 2022 — more than the total value of American agricultural output.