PRISM, the NSA’s hush-hush data gathering program, has kept political commentators and tech pundits very busy over the past few days. The gloomy revelation is still dominating headlines.

On Wednesday, The Guardian published what appeared to be a copy of a fresh court order that mandates Verizon to hand over customer data to the NSA over the course of three months. Less than 24 hours later, the UK-based publication released a PowerPoint presentation that outlines what SiliconAngle’s Mike Whitely called a “massive, warrantless government surveillance program.”

The 41-page slide presentation reveals that PRISM is not limited to just one provider. According to the documents, Google, Microsoft, Apple and six other technology vendors provided law enforcement agencies with the means to access user data – including personal emails, search histories and chat logs – “directly from the[ir] servers.”

The PRISM leak has helped shed much-needed light on the dark underbelly of analytics, but the U.S. government’s dubious actions should not be regarded as a canary in a coal mine. Instead, the leak and subsequent uproar should serve as a lesson for organizations that are pioneering new applications for Big Data: the potential is great, but certain lines should not be crossed.

Apple’s involvement in the PRISM program, which is still very much active if the latest reports are to believed, will give users a reason to think twice before signing up for iRadio, an ad-supported music streaming service that the company is expected to launch at WWDC 2013 next week. Wikibon analyst Jeff Kelly explained that Apple will be keeping track of user activity to deliver targeted advertisements, personalized recommendations and other data-driven content.