1) Data mining involves extracting hidden patterns from large datasets to discover useful information. It is an interdisciplinary field drawing from statistics, machine learning, database technology and more.
2) The overall goal is to extract information and transform it into an understandable structure. This includes data cleaning, integration, selection, transformation, mining patterns, and evaluating/presenting the results.
3) Data mining is used for applications like market analysis, risk analysis, fraud detection and more, across domains like business, science, health, and society. It has the potential to provide insights from vast amounts of accumulated data.