Data Capitalism: Redefining the Logics of Surveillance and Privacy

Bibliographic info

Commentary

This paper^[1] coins the term "data capitalism", similar to Shoshana Zuboff's (2015) term "surveillance capitalism", where business profits from access to societal data and surveillance respectively^[2]. After experimenting with surveilling users by collecting data on their usage of online technologies, companies early in the digital age used this data to predict what products they would buy next. This led to a market driven by data collected from users of online platforms which advertises certain products and services based on a user's online behavior. What followed was leading global tech companies at war with renewed regulations on consumer data privacy spearheaded by countries around the world. In my opinion, this concept addresses a sparsely discussed yet potentially dangerous practice, where internet usage of the consumer is collected and used to the advantage of a corporation, turning online behavior into a currency relatively unnoticed by the consumer.

Excerpts & Key Quotes

Page 29:

While transparency regulations have the considerable benefit of making otherwise invisible tracking more visible, they place the onus on the users to make the unenviable choice between opting out of services entirely—rescinding access to government services, workplace technologies, and their ability to communicate with their peers—or acquiescing to the collection of their data.

Comment:
At this day and age, members of society and internet usage are synonymous, as it is very difficult to maintain a connected lifestyle while opting out of communication services, let alone government services. Thus, opting out of these crucial systems are essentially not an option, unless a citizen wants to take the extreme measure of "falling off the grid".

Page 32:

AdSense deploys cookie technologies, which install a bit of code on a user’s computer whenever they click on an ad so the advertiser can track subsequent behavior. This gave Google’s data collection breadth, as it began to collect data on users’ clicks across the wider web.

Comment:
A search company installing code on a user's computer to track them sounds quite dystopian but is reality, even in the same year that the first iPod was released, as Google launched AdSense in 2003. It raises the question as to when this was discovered by regulators and whether this practice is still allowed, especially as many business processes are considered proprietary. Next to this, it would be interesting to know the public opinion on this practice.

Page 35:

Despite the apparent value they place on transparency, the processes and mechanisms through which companies like Google and Facebook enact their business objectives are closely guarded as their most prized trade secrets.

Comment:
This is worrying for consumers, as it is widely unknown how Google and Facebook are collecting data and what their business model really entails. The main currency driving these tech companies is not a subscription paid for by users but instead personal data that is collected from their online activity, whether they are aware of it or not. Now, it is also apparent that the processes used to carry out their business objectives are not known to the public.