Electronic copy available at: http:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=2594754
\nResearch article
\nBig other: surveillance capitalism and the
\nprospects of an information civilization
\nShoshana Zuboff1,2
\n1
\nHarvard Business School Emerita, Boston, MA, USA;
\n2
\nBerkman Center for Internet and Society, Cambridge, MA, USA
\nCorrespondence:
\nS Zuboff, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Cambridge, MA, USA.
\nE-mail: Szuboff@hbs.edu
\nAbstract
\nThis article describes an emergent logic of accumulation in the networked sphere,
\n\u2018surveillance capitalism,\u2019 and considers its implications for \u2018information civilization.\u2019 The
\ninstitutionalizing practices and operational assumptions of Google Inc. are the primary lens
\nfor this analysis as they are rendered in two recent articles authored by Google Chief
\nEconomist Hal Varian. Varian asserts four uses that follow from computer-mediated
\ntransactions: \u2018data extraction and analysis,\u2019 \u2018new contractual forms due to better monitoring,\u2019 \u2018personalization and customization,\u2019 and \u2018continuous experiments.\u2019 An examination of
\nthe nature and consequences of these uses sheds light on the implicit logic of surveillance
\ncapitalism and the global architecture of computer mediation upon which it depends. This
\narchitecture produces a distributed and largely uncontested new expression of power that I
\nchristen: \u2018Big Other.\u2019 It is constituted by unexpected and often illegible mechanisms of
\nextraction, commodification, and control that effectively exile persons from their own
\nbehavior while producing new markets of behavioral prediction and modification. Surveillance capitalism challenges democratic norms and departs in key ways from the centurieslong evolution of market capitalism.
\nJournal of Information Technology (2015) 30, 75\u201389. doi:10.1057\/jit.2015.5
\nKeywords: surveillance capitalism; big data; Google; information society; privacy; internet of
\neverything
\nIntroduction
\nArecent White House report on \u2018big data\u2019 concludes, \u2018The
\ntechnological trajectory, however, is clear: more and
\nmore data will be generated about individuals and will
\npersist under the control of others\u2019 (White House, 2014: 9).
\nReading this statement brought to mind a 2009 interview with
\nGoogle Chairperson Eric Schmidt when the public first
\ndiscovered that Google retained individual search histories
\nthat were also made available to state security and law
\nenforcement agencies, \u2018If you have something that you don\u2019t
\nwant anyone to know, maybe you shouldn\u2019t be doing it in the
\nfirst place, but if you really need that kind of privacy, the
\nreality is that search engines including Google do retain this
\ninformation for some time \u2026 It is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities\u2019 (Newman,
\n2009). What these two statements share is the attribution of
\nagency to \u2018technology.\u2019 \u2018Big data\u2019 is cast as the inevitable
\nconsequence of a technological juggernaut with a life of its
\nown entirely outside the social. We are but bystanders.
\nMost articles on the subject of \u2018big data\u2019 commence with
\nan effort to define \u2018it.\u2019 This suggests to me that a reasonable
\ndefinition has not yet been achieved. My argument here is
\nthat we have not yet successfully defined \u2018big data\u2019 because we
\ncontinue to view it as a technological object, effect or
\ncapability. The inadequacy of this view forces us to return
\nover and again to the same ground. In this article I take a
\ndifferent approach. \u2018Big data,\u2019 I argue, is not a technology or an
\ninevitable technology effect. It is not an autonomous process,
\nas Schmidt and others would have us think. It originates in the
\nsocial, and it is there that we must find it and know it. In this
\narticle I explore the proposition that \u2018big data\u2019 is above all the
\nfoundational component in a deeply intentional and highly
\nconsequential new logic of accumulation that I call surveillance capitalism. This new form of information capitalism
\naims to predict and modify human behavior as a means to
\nproduce revenue and market control. Surveillance capitalism
\nhas gradually constituted itself during the last decade, embodying
\nJournal of Information Technology (2015) 30, 75\u201389
\n\u00a9 2015 JIT Palgrave Macmillan All rights reserved 0268-3962\/15
\npalgrave-journals.com\/jit\/
\nElectronic copy available at: http:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=2594754
\na new social relations and politics that have not yet been well
\ndelineated or theorized. While \u2018big data\u2019 may be set to other
\nuses, those do not erase its origins in an extractive project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)
\nfounded on formal indifference to the populations that
\ncomprise both its data sources and its ultimate targets.
\nConstantiou and Kallinikos (2014) provide important clues
\nto this new direction in their article \u2018New games, new rules: big
\ndata and the changing context of strategy,\u2019 as they lift the veil on
\nthe black box, that is \u2018big data,\u2019 to reveal its epistemic contents
\nand their indigenous problematics. \u2018New games\u2019 is a powerful
\nand necessary contribution to this opaque intellectual territory.
\nThe article builds on earlier warnings (e.g. boyd and Crawford,
\n2011; Bhimani and Willcocks, 2014) to sharply delineate the
\nepistemic features of \u2018big data\u2019 \u2013 heterogeneous, unstructured,
\ntrans-semiotic, decontextualized, agnostic \u2013 and to illuminate
\nthe epistemological discontinuities such data entail for the
\nmethods and mindsets of corporate strategy\u2019s formal, deductive,
\ninward-focused, and positivistic conventions.
\nIn claiming this black box for the known world,
\nConstantiou and Kallinikos (2014) also insist on the mysteries that remain unsolved. \u2018Big data,\u2019 they warn, heralds
\n\u2018a transformation of contemporary economy and society \u2026 a
\nmuch wider shift that makes everydayness qua data imprints
\nan intrinsic component of organizational and institutional
\nlife \u2026 and also a primary target of commercialization
\nstrategies \u2026\u2019 Such changes, they say, concern \u2018the blurring
\nof long-established social and institutional divisions \u2026 the
\nvery nature of firms and organizations and their relations to
\nindividuals qua users, customers or clients, and citizens.\u2019
\nThese challenges also \u2018recast management \u2026 as a field and
\nsocial practice in a new context whose exact outlines still
\nremain unclear \u2026 (10).\u2019
\nIn this brief article, I aim to contribute to a new discussion
\non these still untheorized new territories in which the roiling
\nephemera of Constantiou\u2019s and Kallinikos\u2019s \u2018big data\u2019 are
\nembedded: the migration of everydayness as a commercialization strategy; the blurring of divisions; the nature of the firm
\nand its relation to populations. In preparation for the arguments I want to make here, I begin with a very brief review of a
\nfew foundational concepts. I then move on to a close examination of two articles by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian that
\ndisclose the logic and implications of surveillance capitalism as
\nwell as \u2018big data\u2019s\u2019 foundational role in this new regime.
\nComputer mediation meets the logic of accumulation
\nNearly 35 years ago I first developed the notion of \u2018computer
\nmediation\u2019 in an MIT Working Paper called \u2018The Psychological and Organizational Implications of ComputerMediated Work\u2019 (Zuboff 1981; see also Zuboff, 2013 for a
\nhistory of this concept and its meaning). In that paper and
\nsubsequent writing I distinguished \u2018computer-mediated\u2019
\nwork from earlier generations of mechanization and automation designed to substitute for or simplify human labor
\n(e.g. Zuboff, 1988, 1985, 1982). I observed that information
\ntechnology is characterized by a fundamental duality that
\nhad not yet been fully appreciated. It can be applied to
\nautomate operations according to a logic that hardly differs
\nfrom that of centuries past: replace the human body with
\nmachines that enable more continuity and control. But when
\nit comes to information technology, automation simultaneously generates information that provides a deeper level of
\ntransparency to activities that had been either partially or
\ncompletely opaque. It not only imposes information (in the
\nform of programmed instructions), but it also produces
\ninformation. The action of a machine is entirely invested in
\nits object, but information technology also reflects back on its
\nactivities and on the system of activities to which it is related.
\nThis produces action linked to a reflexive voice, as computermediation symbolically renders events, objects, and processes that become visible, knowable, and shareable in a new
\nway. This distinction, to put it simply, marks the difference
\nbetween \u2018smart\u2019 and \u2018dumb.\u2019
\nThe word I coined to describe this unique capacity is
\ninformate. Information technology alone has the capacity to
\nautomate and to informate. As a result of the informating
\nprocess, computer-mediated work extends organizational
\ncodification resulting in a comprehensive \u2018textualization\u2019 of
\nthe work environment \u2013 what I called \u2018the electronic text.\u2019
\nThat text created new opportunities for learning and therefore
\nnew contests over who would learn, how, and what. Once a
\nfirm is imbued with computer mediation, this new \u2018division of
\nlearning\u2019 becomes more salient than the traditional division of
\nlabor. Even at the early stages of these developments in the
\n1980s, the text was somewhat heterogeneous. It reflected
\nproduction flows and administrative processes along with
\ncustomer interfaces, but it also revealed human behavior:
\nphone calls, keystrokes, bathroom breaks and other signals of
\nattentional continuity, actions, locations, conversations, networks, specific engagements with people and equipment, and
\nso forth. I recall writing the words in the summer of 1985 that
\nappeared in the final chapter of In the Age of the Smart
\nMachine. They were regarded as outlandish then. \u2018Science
\nfiction,\u2019 some said; \u2018subversive,\u2019 others complained: \u2018The
\ninformated workplace, which may no longer be a \u201cplace\u201d at
\nall, is an arena through which information circulates, information to which intellective effort is applied. The quality, rather
\nthan the quantity, of effort will be the source from which
\nadded value is derived \u2026 learning is the new form of labor\u2019
\n(Zuboff, 1988: 395).
\nToday we must strain to imagine when these conditions \u2013
\ncomputer mediation, textualization, learning as labor \u2013 were
\nnot the case, at least for broad sectors of the labor force. Realtime information-based computer-mediated learning has
\nbecome so endogenous to everyday business activities that the
\ntwo domains are more or less conflated. This is what most of us
\ndo now as work. These new facts are institutionalized in
\nthousands, if not millions, of new species of action within firms.
\nSome of these are more formal: continuous improvement
\nmethodologies, enterprise integration, employee monitoring,
\nICT systems that enable the global coordination of distributed
\nmanufacturing operations, professional activities, teams, customers, supply chains, inter-firm project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s, mobile and temporary
\nworkforces, and marketing approaches to diverse configurations of consumers. Some are less formal: the unceasing flow of
\nemail, online search, smartphone activities, apps, texts, video
\nmeetings, social media interactions, and so forth.
\nThe division of learning, however, is no pure form. During
\n20 years of fieldwork, I encountered the same lesson in
\nhundreds of variations. The division of learning, like the
\ndivision of labor, is always shaped by contests over these
\nquestions: Who participates and how? Who decides who
\nparticipates? What happens when authority fails? In the
\nmarket sphere, the electronic text and what can be learned
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n76
\nfrom it were never \u2013 and can never be \u2013 \u2018things in themselves.\u2019
\nThey are always already constituted by the answers to these
\nquestions. In other words, they are already embedded in the
\nsocial, their possibilities circumscribed by authority and
\npower.
\nThe key point here is that when it comes to the market
\nsphere, the electronic text is already organized by the logic
\nof accumulation in which it is embedded and the conflicts
\ninherent to that logic. The logic of accumulation organizes
\nperception and shapes the expression of technological affordances at their roots. It is the taken-for-granted context of any
\nbusiness model. Its assumptions are largely tacit, and its power
\nto shape the field of possibilities is therefore largely invisible. It
\ndefines objectives, successes, failures, and problems. It determines what is measured, and what is passed over; how
\nresources and people are allocated and organized; who is
\nvalued in what roles; what activities are undertaken \u2013 and to
\nwhat purpose. The logic of accumulation produces its own
\nsocial relations and with that its conceptions and uses of
\nauthority and power.
\nIn the history of capitalism, each era has run toward a
\ndominant logic of accumulation \u2013 mass production-based
\ncorporate capitalism in the 20th century shaded into financial
\ncapitalism by that century\u2019s end \u2013 a form that continues to hold
\nsway. This helps to explain why there is so little real competitive
\ndifferentiation within industries. Airlines, for example, have
\nimmense information flows that are interpreted along more or
\nless similar lines toward similar aims and metrics, because firms
\nare all evaluated according to the terms of a single shared logic
\nof accumulation.1 The same could be said for banks, hospitals,
\ntelecommunications companies, and so forth.
\nStill, capitalism\u2019s success over the longue dur\u00e9e has
\ndepended upon the emergence of new market forms expressing new logics of accumulation that are more successful at
\nmeeting the ever-evolving needs of populations and their
\nexpression in the changing nature of demand.2 As Piketty
\nacknowledges in his Capital in the Twenty-First Century,
\n\u2018There is no single variety of capitalism or organization of
\nproduction \u2026 This will continue to be true in the future, no
\ndoubt more than ever: new forms of organization and ownership remain to be invented\u2019 (Piketty, 2014: 483). The philosopher and legal scholar Roberto Unger has also written
\npersuasively on this point:
\nThe concept of a market economy is institutionally indeterminate \u2026 it is capable of being realized in different legal and
\ninstitutional directions, each with dramatic consequences for
\nevery aspect of social life, including the class structure of
\nsociety and the distribution of wealth and power \u2026 Which of
\nits institutional realizations prevails has immense importance
\nfor the future of humanity \u2026 a market economy can adopt
\nradically divergent institutional forms, including different
\nregimes of property and contract and different ways of
\nrelating government and private producers. The forms now
\nestablished in the leading economies represent the fragment
\nof a larger and open-ended field of possibilities.
\n(Unger 2007: 8, 41)
\nNew market forms emerge in distinct times and places. Some
\nrise to hegemony, others exist in parallel to the dominant
\nform, and others are revealed in time as evolutionary dead
\nends.
\nHow can these conceptual building blocks help us make
\nsense of \u2018big data\u2019? Some points are obvious: three of the
\nworld\u2019s seven billion people are now computer-mediated in a
\nwide range of their daily activities far beyond the traditional
\nboundaries of the workplace. For them the old dream of
\nubiquitous computing (Weiser, 1991) is a barely noticeable
\ntruism. As a result of pervasive computer mediation, nearly
\nevery aspect of the world is rendered in a new symbolic
\ndimension as events, objects, processes, and people become
\nvisible, knowable, and shareable in a new way. The world is
\nreborn as data and the electronic text is universal in scale and
\nscope.3 Just a moment ago, it still seemed reasonable to focus
\nour concerns on the challenges of an information workplace
\nor an information society. Now the enduring questions of
\nauthority and power must be addressed to the widest possible
\nframe that is best defined as \u2018civilization\u2019 or more specifically \u2013
\ninformation civilization. Who learns from global data flows,
\nwhat, and how? Who decides? What happens when authority
\nfails? What logic of accumulation will shape the answers to
\nthese questions? Recognizing their civilizational scale lends
\nthese questions new force and urgency. Their answers will
\nshape the character of information civilization in the century
\nto come, just as the logic of industrial capitalism and its
\nsuccessors shaped the character of industrial civilization over
\nthe last two centuries.
\nIn the brief space of this work, my ambition is to begin the
\ntask of illuminating an emergent logic of accumulation that vies
\nfor hegemony in today\u2019s networked spaces. My primary lens for
\nthis brief exploration is Google, the world\u2019s most popular
\nwebsite. Google is widely considered to be the pioneer of \u2018big
\ndata\u2019 (e.g. Mayer-Sch\u00f6nberger and Cukier, 2013), and on the
\nstrength of those accomplishments it has also pioneered the
\nwider logic of accumulation I call surveillance capitalism, of
\nwhich \u2018big data\u2019 is both a condition and an expression. This
\nemerging logic is not only shared by Facebook and many other
\nlarge Internet-based firms, it also appears to have become the
\ndefault model for most online startups and applications. Like
\nConstantiou and Kallinikos (2014), I begin this discussion with
\nthe characteristics of the data in \u2018big data\u2019 and how they are
\ngenerated. But where those authors trained their sights on the
\ndata\u2019s epistemic features, I want to consider their individual,
\nsocial, and political significance.
\nThis discussion here is organized around two extraordinary
\ndocuments written by Google\u2019s Chief Economist Hal Varian
\n(Varian, 2014, 2010). His claims and observations offer a
\nstarting point for insights into the systemic logic of accumulation in which \u2018big data\u2019 are embedded. I note here that while
\nVarian is not a Google line executive, his articles invite a close
\ninspection of Google\u2019s practices as a prime exemplar of this
\nnew logic of accumulation. In both pieces, Varian illustrates
\nhis points with examples from Google. He often uses the first
\nperson plural in these instances, such as, \u2018Google has been so
\nsuccessful with our own experiments that we have made them
\navailable to our advertisers and publishers in two programs.\u2019
\nOr, \u2018Google has seen 30 trillion URLs, crawls over 20 billion of
\nthose a day and answers 100 billion search queries a month \u2026
\nwe have had to develop new types of databases that can store
\ndata in massive tables spread across thousands of machines
\nand can process queries on more than a trillion records in a
\nfew seconds. We published descriptions of these tools \u2026\u2019
\n(Varian, 2014: 27, 29). It therefore seems fair to assume that
\nVarian\u2019s perspectives reflect the substance of Google\u2019s
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n77
\nbusiness practices, and, to a certain extent, the worldview that
\nunderlies those practices.
\nIn the two articles I examine here, Varian\u2019s theme is the
\nuniversality of \u2018computer-mediated economic transactions.\u2019
\nHe writes, \u2018The computer creates a record of the transaction
\n\u2026 I argue that these computer-mediated transactions have
\nenabled significant improvements in the way transactions are
\ncarried out and will continue to impact the economy for the
\nforeseeable future\u2019 (2010: 2). The implications of Varian\u2019s
\nobservation are significant. The informating of the economy,
\nas he observes, is constituted by a pervasive and continuous
\nrecording of the details of each transaction. In this vision,
\ncomputer mediation renders an economy transparent and
\nknowable in new ways. This is a sharp contrast to the classic
\nneoliberal ideal of \u2018the market\u2019 as intrinsically ineffable and
\nunknowable. Hayek\u2019s conception of the market was as an
\nincomprehensible \u2018extended order\u2019 to which mere individuals
\nmust subjugate their wills (Hayek, 1988: 14\u201315). It was
\nprecisely the unknowability of the universe of market transactions that anchored Hayek\u2019s claims for the necessity of radical
\nfreedom from state intervention or regulation. Given Varian\u2019s
\nnew facts of a knowable market, he asserts four new \u2018uses\u2019 that
\nfollow from computer-mediated transactions: \u2018data extraction
\nand analysis,\u2019 \u2018new contractual forms due to better monitoring,\u2019 \u2018personalization and customization,\u2019 and \u2018continuous
\nexperiments\u2019 (Varian, 2014). Each one of these provides
\ninsights into an emerging logic of accumulation, the division
\nof learning that it shapes, and the character of the information
\ncivilization toward which it leads.
\nData, extraction, analysis
\nThe first of Varian\u2019s new uses is \u2018data extraction and analysis
\n\u2026 what everyone is talking about when they talk about big
\ndata\u2019 (Varian, 2014: 27). I want to examine each word in this
\nphrase \u2013 \u2018data,\u2019 \u2018extraction,\u2019 and \u2018analysis\u2019 \u2013 as each conveys
\ninsights into the new logic of accumulation.
\nData
\nThe data from computer-mediated economic transactions is a
\nsignificant dimension of \u2018big data.\u2019 There are other sources too,
\nincluding flows that arise from a variety of computer-mediated
\ninstitutional and trans-institutional systems. Among these we
\ncan include a second source of computer-mediated flows that is
\nexpected to grow exponentially: data from billions of sensors
\nembedded in a widening range of objects, bodies, and places. An
\noften cited Cisco White Paper predicts $14.4 trillion of new
\nvalue associated with this \u2018Internet of Everything\u2019 (Cisco,
\n2013a, b). Google\u2019s new investments in machine learning,
\ndrones, wearables, self-driving cars, nano particles that \u2018patrol\u2019
\nthe body for signs of disease, and smart devices for the home are
\neach essential components of this growing network of smart
\nsensors and Internet-enabled devices intended as a new intelligent infrastructure for objects and bodies (Bradshaw, 2014a, b;
\nKovach, 2013; BBC News, 2014; Brewster, 2014; Dwoskin, 2014;
\nEconomist, 2014; Fink, 2014; Kelly, 2014; Lin, 2014; Parnell,
\n2014; Winkler and Wakabayashi, 2014). A third source of data
\nflows from corporate and government databases including those
\nassociated with banks, payment-clearing intermediaries, credit
\nrating agencies, airlines, tax and census records, health care
\noperations, credit card, insurance, pharmaceutical, and telecom
\ncompanies, and more. Many of these data, along with the data
\nflows of commercial transactions, are purchased, aggregated,
\nanalyzed, packaged, and sold by data brokers who operate, in the
\nUS at least, in secrecy \u2013 outside of statutory consumer protections and without consumers\u2019 knowledge, consent, or rights of
\nprivacy and due process (U.S. Committee on Commerce,
\nScience, and Transportation, 2013).
\nA fourth source of \u2018big data,\u2019 one that speaks to its
\nheterogeneous and trans-semiotic character, flows from private and public surveillance cameras, including everything
\nfrom smartphones to satellites, Street View to Google Earth.
\nGoogle has been at the forefront of this contentious data
\ndomain. For example, Google Street View was launched in
\n2007 and encountered opposition around the world. German
\nauthorities discovered that some Street View cars were
\nequipped with scanners to scrape data from private Wi-Fi
\nnetworks (O\u2019Brien and Miller, 2013). According to the
\nElectronic Privacy Information Center\u2019s (EPIC) summary of
\na lawsuit filed by 38 states\u2019 Attorneys General and the District
\nof Columbia, the court concluded that \u2018the company engaged
\nin unauthorized collection of data from wireless networks,
\nincluding private WiFi networks of residential Internet users.\u2019
\nThe EPIC report summarizes a redacted version of an FCC
\nreport revealing that \u2018Google intentionally intercepted payload
\ndata for business purposes and that many supervisors and
\nengineers within the company reviewed the code and the
\ndesign documents associated with the project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)\u2019 (EPIC, 2014b).
\nAccording to the New York Times account of Google\u2019s
\neventual seven million dollar settlement of the case, \u2018the search
\ncompany for the first time is required to aggressively police its
\nown employees on privacy issues \u2026\u2019 (Streitfeld, 2013). Street
\nView was restricted in many countries and continues to face
\nlitigation over what claimants have characterized as \u2018secret,\u2019
\n\u2018illicit,\u2019 and \u2018illegal\u2019 data gathering tactics in the US, Europe,
\nand elsewhere (Office of the Privacy Commission of Canada,
\n2010; O\u2019Brien, 2012; Jammet, 2014).
\nIn Street View, Google developed a declarative method
\nthat it has repeated in other data ventures. This modus
\noperandi is that of incursion into undefended private territory until resistance is encountered. As one consumer watchdog summarized it for the New York Times, \u2018Google puts
\ninnovation ahead of everything and resists asking permission\u2019 (Streitfeld, 2013; see also Burdon and McKillop, 2013).
\nThe firm does not ask if it can photograph homes for its
\ndatabases. It simply takes what it wants. Google then
\nexhausts its adversaries in court or eventually agrees to pay
\nfines that represent a negligible investment for a significant
\nreturn.4 It is a process that Siva Vaihyanathan has called
\n\u2018infrastructure imperialism\u2019 (Vaidhyanathan, 2011). EPIC
\nmaintains a comprehensive online record of the hundreds of
\ncases launched against Google by countries, states, groups,
\nand individuals, and there are many more cases that never
\nbecome public (EPIC, 2014a, b).
\nThese institutionally produced data flows represent the
\n\u2018supply\u2019 side of the computer-mediated interface. With these
\ndata alone it is possible to construct detailed individual
\nprofiles. But the universality of computer-mediation has
\noccurred through a complex process of causation that includes
\nsubjective activities too \u2013 the demand side of computermediation. Individual needs drove the accelerated penetration
\ncurves of the Internet. In less than two decades after the
\nMosaic web browser was released to the public, enabling easy
\naccess to the World Wide Web, a 2010 BBC poll found that
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n78
\n79% of people in 26 countries considered Internet access to be
\na fundamental human right (BBC, 2010).
\nOutside the market-based hierarchical spaces of the workplace, Internet access, indexing, and search meant that individuals were finally free to pursue the resources they needed for
\neffective life unimpeded by the monitoring, metrics, insecurity,
\nrole requirements, and secrecy imposed by the firm and its logic
\nof accumulation. Individual needs for self-expression, voice,
\ninfluence, information, learning, empowerment, and connection
\nsummoned all sorts of new capabilities into existence in just a
\nfew years: Google\u2019s searches, iPod\u2019s music, Facebook\u2019s pages,
\nYouTube\u2019s videos, blogs, networks, communities of friends,
\nstrangers, and colleagues, all reaching out beyond the old
\ninstitutional and geographical boundaries in a kind of exultation
\nof hunting and gathering and sharing information for every
\npurpose or none at all. It was mine, and I could do with it what I
\nwished!
\n5 These subjectivities of self-determination found expression in a new networked individual sphere characterized by what
\nBenkler (2006) aptly summarized as non-market forms of \u2018social
\nproduction.\u2019
\nThese non-market activities are a fifth principal source of
\n\u2018big data\u2019 and the origin of what Constantiou and Kallinikos
\n(2014) refer to as its \u2018everydayness.\u2019 \u2018Big data\u2019 are constituted by
\ncapturing small data from individuals\u2019 computer-mediated
\nactions and utterances in their pursuit of effective life. Nothing
\nis too trivial or ephemeral for this harvesting: Facebook \u2018likes,\u2019
\nGoogle searches, emails, texts, photos, songs, and videos, location, communication patterns, networks, purchases, movements,
\nevery click, misspelled word, page view, and more. Such data are
\nacquired, datafied, abstracted, aggregated, analyzed, packaged,
\nsold, further analyzed and sold again. These data flows have been
\nlabeled by technologists as \u2018data exhaust.\u2019 Presumably, once the
\ndata are redefined as waste material, their extraction and eventual
\nmonetization are less likely to be contested.
\nGoogle became the largest and most successful \u2018big data\u2019
\ncompany, because it is the most visited website and therefore has
\nthe largest data exhaust. Like many other born-digital firms,
\nGoogle rushed to meet the waves of pent-up demand that
\nflooded the networked individual sphere in the first years of the
\nWorld Wide Web. It was a heroic exemplar of individual
\nempowerment in the quest for effective life. But as pressures
\nfor profit mounted, Google\u2019s leaders were concerned about the
\neffect that fees-for-service might have on user growth. They
\nopted instead for an advertising model. The new approach
\ndepended upon the acquisition of user data as the raw material
\nfor proprietary analyses and algorithm production that could
\nsell and target advertising through a unique auction model with
\never more precision and success. As Google\u2019s revenues rapidly
\ngrew, they motivated ever more comprehensive data collection.6
\nThe new science of big data analytics exploded, driven largely by
\nGoogle\u2019s spectacular success.
\nEventually it became clear that Google\u2019s business is the
\nauction business, and its customers are advertisers (see useful
\ndiscussions of this turning point in Auletta, 2009;
\nVaidhyanathan, 2011; and Lanier, 2013). AdWords, Google\u2019s
\nalgorithmic auction method for selling online advertising,
\nanalyzes massive amounts of data to determine which advertisers get which one of 11 sponsored links on each results page.
\nIn a 2009 Wired article on \u2018Googlenomics,\u2019 Google\u2019s Varian
\ncommented, \u2018Why does Google give away products \u2026 ?
\nAnything that increases Internet use ultimately enriches
\nGoogle \u2026\u2019 The article continues, \u2018\u2026 more eyeballs on the
\nWeb lead inexorably to more ad sales for Google \u2026 And since
\nprediction and analysis are so crucial to AdWords, every bit of
\ndata, no matter how seemingly trivial, has potential value\u2019
\n(Levy, 2009). The theme is reiterated in Mayer-Sch\u00f6nberger
\nand Cukier\u2019s Big Data: \u2018Many companies design their systems
\nso that they can harvest data exhaust \u2026 Google is the
\nundisputed leader \u2026 every action a user performs is considered a signal to be analyzed and fed back into the system\u2019
\n(2013: 113). This helps explain why Google outbid all
\ncompetitors for the privilege of providing free Wi-Fi to
\nStarbuck\u2019s 3 billion yearly customers (Schmarzo, 2014). More
\nusers produce more exhaust that improves the predictive value
\nof analyses and results in more lucrative auctions. What
\nmatters is quantity not quality. Another way of saying this is
\nthat Google is \u2018formally indifferent\u2019 to what its users say or do,
\nas long as they say it and do it in ways that Google can capture
\nand convert into data.
\nExtraction
\nThis \u2018formal indifference\u2019 is a prominent, perhaps decisive,
\ncharacteristic of the emerging logic of accumulation under
\nexamination here. The second term in Varian\u2019s phrase,
\n\u2018extraction,\u2019 also sheds light on the social relations implied by
\nformal indifference. First, and most obvious, extraction is a
\none-way process, not a relationship. Extraction connotes a
\n\u2018taking from\u2019 rather than either a \u2018giving to,\u2019 or a reciprocity of
\n\u2018give and take.\u2019 The extractive processes that make big data
\npossible typically occur in the absence of dialogue or consent,
\ndespite the fact that they signal both facts and subjectivities of
\nindividual lives. These subjectivities travel a hidden path to
\naggregation and decontextualization, despite the fact that they
\nare produced as intimate and immediate, tied to individual
\nproject ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)s and contexts (Nissembaum, 2011). Indeed, it is the
\nstatus of such data as signals of subjectivities that makes them
\nmost valuable for advertisers. For Google and other \u2018big data\u2019
\naggregators, however, the data are merely bits. Subjectivities
\nare converted into objects that repurpose the subjective for
\ncommodification. Individual users\u2019 meanings are of no interest to Google or other firms in this chain. In this way, the
\nmethods of production of \u2018big data\u2019 from small data and the
\nways in which \u2018big data\u2019 are valued reflect the formal
\nindifference that characterizes the firm\u2019s relationship to its
\npopulations of \u2018users.\u2019 Populations are the sources from which
\ndata extraction proceeds and the ultimate targets of the
\nutilities such data produce.
\nFormal indifference is evident in the aggressiveness with
\nwhich Google pursues its interests in extracting signals of
\nindividual subjectivities. In these extractive activities it follows
\nthe Street View model: incursions into legally and socially
\nundefended territory until resistance is encountered. Its
\npractices appear designed to be undetectable or at least
\nobscure, and had it not been for NSA whistleblower Edward
\nSnowden aspects of its operations, especially as they overlap
\nstate security interests, would still be hidden. Most of what was
\nknown about Google\u2019s practices erupted from the conflicts it
\nproduced (Angwin, 2014). For example, Google has faced legal
\nopposition and social protest in relation to claims of (1) the
\nscanning of email, including those of non-Gmail users and those
\nof students using its educational apps (Herold, 2014; Plummer,
\n2014), (2) the capture of voice communications (Menn
\net al., 2010), (3) bypassing privacy settings (Angwin, 2012;
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n79
\nOwen, 2014), (4) unilateral practices of data bundling across
\nits online services (CNIL, 2014; Doyle, 2013), (5) its extensive
\nretention of search data (Anderson, 2010; O\u2019Brien and
\nCrampton, 2007), (6) its tracking of smartphone location data
\n(Mick, 2011; Snelling, 2014), and (7) its wearable technologies
\nand facial recognition capabilities (EPIC, 2014a, https:\/\/epic.
\norg\/privacy\/google\/glass\/). These contested data gathering
\nmoves face substantial opposition in the EU as well as the US
\n(Barker and Fontanella-Khan, 2014; Gabriel, 2014; Garside,
\n2014; Kopczynski, 2014; Mance et al., 2014; Steingart, 2014;
\nVasagar, 2014).
\n\u2018Extraction\u2019 summarizes the absence of structural reciprocities between the firm and its populations. This fact alone lifts
\nGoogle, and other participants in its logic of accumulation, out
\nof the historical narrative of Western market democracies. For
\nexample, the 20th-century corporation canonized by scholars
\nlike Berle and Means (1991) and Chandler Jr (1977) originated
\nin and was sustained by deep interdependencies with its
\npopulations. The form and its bosses had many failings and
\nproduced many violent facts that have been well documented,
\nbut I focus here on a different point. That market form
\nintrinsically valued its populations of newly modernizing
\nindividuals as its source of employees and customers; it
\ndepended upon its populations in ways that led over time to
\ninstitutionalized reciprocities. In return for its rigors, the form
\noffered a quid pro quo that was consistent with the selfunderstanding and demand characteristics of its populations.
\nOn the inside were durable employment systems, career
\nladders, and steady increases in wages and benefits for more
\nworkers (Sklar, 1988). On the outside were the dramas of
\naccess to affordable goods and services for more consumers
\n(Cohen, 2003).
\nThe \u2018five dollar day\u2019 was emblematic of this systemic logic,
\nrecognizing as it did that the whole enterprise rested upon a
\nconsuming population. The firm, Ford realized, had to value
\nthe worker-consumer as a fundamental unity and the essential
\ncomponent of a new mass production capitalism. This social
\ncontract hearkened back to Adam Smith\u2019s original insights
\ninto the productive reciprocities of capitalism, in which price
\nincreases were balanced with wage increases, \u2018so that the
\nlabourer may still be able to purchase that quantity of those
\nnecessary articles which the state of the demand for labour \u2026
\nrequires that he should have\u2019 (Smith, 1994: 939\u2013940). It was
\nthese reciprocities that helped constitute a broad middle class
\nwith steady income growth and a rising standard of living.
\nIndeed, considered from the vantage point of the last 30-plus
\nyears during which this market form was systematically
\ndeconstructed, its embeddedness in the social order through
\nthese structural reciprocities appears to have been one of its
\nmost salient features (Davis, 2011, 2013).
\nGoogle and the \u2018big data\u2019 project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees) represent a break with this
\npast. Its populations are no longer necessary as the source of
\ncustomers or employees. Advertisers are its customers along
\nwith other intermediaries who purchase its data analyses.
\nGoogle employs only about 48,000 people as of this writing,
\nand is known to have thousands of applicants for every job
\nopening. (As contrast: at the height of its power in 1953,
\nGeneral Motors was the world\u2019s largest private employer.)
\nGoogle, therefore, has little interest in its users as employees.
\nThis pattern is true of hyperscale high tech companies
\nthat achieve growth mainly by leveraging automation. For
\nexample, the top three Silicon Valley companies in 2014 had
\nrevenues of $247 billion, only 137,000 employees, and a
\ncombined market capitalization of $1.09 trillion. In contrast,
\neven as late as 1990, the three top Detroit automakers
\nproduced revenues of $250 billion with 1.2 million employees
\nand a combined market capitalization of $36 billion (Manyika
\nand Chui, 2014).
\nThis structural independence of the firm from its populations is a matter of exceptional importance in light of the
\nhistorical relationship between market capitalism and democracy. For example, Acemoglu and Robinson elaborate the
\nmutual structuring of (1) early industrial capitalism\u2019s dependency on the masses, (2) prosperity, and (3) the rise of
\ndemocracy in 19th-century Britain. Examining that era\u2019s
\nsuccessful new market forms and the accompanying shift
\ntoward democratic institutions they observe, \u2018Clamping down
\non popular demands and undertaking a coup against inclusive
\npolitical institutions would \u2026 destroy \u2026 gains, and the elites
\nopposing greater democratization and greater inclusiveness
\nmight find themselves among those losing their fortunes from
\nthis destruction\u2019 (2012: 313\u2013314). Google bears no such risks.
\nOn the contrary, despite its role as the \u2018chief utility for the
\nWorld Wide Web\u2019 (Vaidhyanathan, 2011: 17) and its substantial investments in technologies with explosive social
\nconsequences such as artificial intelligence, robotics, facial
\nrecognition, wearables, nanotechnology, smart devices, and
\ndrones, Google has not been subject to any meaningful public
\noversight (see e.g. the discussion in Vaidhyanathan, 2011: 44\u2013
\n50; see also Finamore and Dutta, 2014; Gibbs, 2014; Trotman,
\n2014; Waters, 2014). In an open letter to Europe, Google
\nChairperson Eric Schmidt recently expressed his frustration
\nwith the prospect of public oversight, characterizing it as
\n\u2018heavy-handed regulation\u2019 and threatening that it would create
\n\u2018serious economic dangers\u2019 for Europe (Schmidt, 2014).
\nAnalysis
\nGoogle\u2019s formal indifference toward and functional distance
\nfrom populations is further institutionalized in the necessities
\nof \u2018analysis\u2019 that Varian emphasizes. Google is the pioneer of
\nhyperscale. Like other hyperscale businesses \u2013 Facebook,
\nTwitter, Alibaba, and a growing list of high volume information businesses such as telecoms and global payments firms \u2013
\ndata centers require millions of \u2018virtual servers\u2019 that exponentially increase computing capabilities without requiring substantial expansion of physical space, cooling, or electrical
\npower demands.7 Hyperscale businesses exploit digital marginal cost economics to achieve scale quickly at costs that
\napproach zero.8 In addition to these material capabilities,
\nVarian notes that analysis requires data scientists who have
\nmastered the new methods associated with predictive analytics, reality mining, patterns-of-life analysis, and so forth.
\nThese highly specialized material and knowledge requirements further separate subjective meaning from objective
\nresult. In doing so, they eliminate the need for, or possibility
\nof, feedback loops between the firm and its populations. The
\ndata travel through many phases of production, only to return
\nto their source in a second phase of extraction in which the
\nobjective is no longer data but revenue. The cycle then begins
\nagain in the form of new computer-mediated transactions.
\nThis examination of Varian\u2019s combination of data, extraction, and analysis begins to suggest some key features of the
\nnew logic of accumulation associated with big data and
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n80
\nspearheaded by Google. First, revenues depend upon data
\nassets appropriated through ubiquitous automated operations.
\nThese constitute a new asset class: surveillance assets. Critics of
\nsurveillance capitalism might characterize such assets as
\n\u2018stolen goods\u2019 or \u2018contraband\u2019 as they were taken, not given,
\nand do not produce, as I shall argue below, appropriate
\nreciprocities. The cherished culture of social production in
\nthe networked individual sphere relies on the very tools that
\nare now the primary vehicles for the surveillance-based
\nappropriation of the most lucrative data exhaust. These
\nsurveillance assets attract significant investment that can be
\ncalled surveillance capital. Google has, so far, triumphed in the
\nnetworked world through the pioneering construction of this
\nnew market form that is a radically disembedded and extractive variant of information capitalism, one that can be
\nidentified as surveillance capitalism. This new market form
\nhas quickly developed into the default business model for
\nmost online companies and startups, where valuations routinely depend upon \u2018eyeballs\u2019 rather than revenue as a predictor
\nof remunerative surveillance assets.
\nMonitoring and contracts
\nVarian says, \u2018Because transactions are now computer
\nmediated, we can observe behavior that was previously
\nunobservable and write contracts on it. This enables transactions that were simply not feasible before \u2026 Computermediated transactions have enabled new business models \u2026\u2019
\n(2014: 30). Varian offers examples: If someone stops making
\nmonthly car payments, the lender can \u2018instruct the vehicular
\nmonitoring system not to allow the car to be started and to
\nsignal the location where it can be picked up.\u2019 Insurance
\ncompanies, he suggests, can rely on similar monitoring
\nsystems to check if customers are driving safely and thus
\ndetermine whether or not to maintain their insurance or pay
\nclaims. He also suggests that one can hire an agent in a remote
\nlocation to perform tasks and use data from their smartphones
\n\u2013 geolocation, time stamping, photos \u2013 to \u2018prove\u2019 that they
\nactually performed according to the contract.
\nVarian does not appear to realize that what he is celebrating
\nhere is not new contract forms but rather the \u2018un-contract.\u2019
\nHis version of a computer-mediated world transcends the
\ncontract form by stripping away governance and the rule of
\nlaw. Varian appears to be aiming for what Oliver Williamson
\ncalls \u2018a condition of contract utopia\u2019 (1985: 67). In Williamson\u2019s transaction economics, contracts exist to mitigate the
\ninevitability of uncertainty. They operate to economize on
\n\u2018bounded rationality\u2019 and safeguard against \u2018opportunism\u2019 \u2013
\nboth intractable conditions of contracts in the real world of
\nhuman endeavor. He observes that certainty requires
\n\u2018unbounded rationality\u2019 derived from \u2018unrestricted cognitive
\ncompetence,\u2019 which in turn derives from \u2018fully described\u2019
\nadaptations to \u2018publicly observable\u2019 contingent events.
\nWilliamson notes that such conditions inhere to \u2018a world of
\nplanning\u2019 rather than to \u2018the world of governance\u2019 in which
\n\u2018other things being equal \u2026 relations that feature personal
\ntrust will survive greater stress and will display greater
\nadaptability\u2019 (31\u201332, 63).
\nVarian\u2019s vision of the uses of computer-mediated transactions empties the contract of uncertainty. It eliminates the
\nneed for \u2013 and therefore the possibility to develop \u2013 trust.
\nAnother way of saying this is that contracts are lifted from the
\nsocial and reimagined as machine processes. Consensual
\nparticipation in the values from which legitimate authority is
\nderived, along with free will and reciprocal rights and obligations, are traded in for the universal equivalent of the prisoner\u2019s electronic ankle bracelet. Authority, which I have
\nelsewhere described as \u2018the spiritual dimension of power,\u2019
\nrelies on social construction animated by shared foundational
\nvalues. In Varian\u2019s economy, authority is supplanted by
\ntechnique, what I have called \u2018the material dimension of
\npower,\u2019 in which impersonal systems of discipline and control
\nproduce certain knowledge of human behavior independent of
\nconsent (Zuboff, 1988). This subject deserves a more detailed
\nexploration than is possible here, so I limit myself to a few key
\nthemes.
\nIn describing this \u2018new use,\u2019 Varian lays claim to vital
\npolitical territory for the regime of surveillance capitalism. From
\nLocke to Durkheim, the contract and the rule of law that
\nsupports it have been understood as derived from the social
\nand the trust and organic solidarity of which the social is an
\neffect (Durkheim, 1964: 215; Locke, 2010: 112\u2013115, 339). For
\nWeber, \u2018the most essential feature of modern substantive law,
\nespecially private law is the greatly increased significance of legal
\ntransactions, particularly contracts, as a source of claims guaranteed by legal coercion \u2026 one can \u2026 designate the contemporary type of society \u2026 as a \u201ccontractual\u201d one\u2019 (1978: 669).
\nAs Hannah Arendt suggests, \u2018the great variety of contract
\ntheories since the Romans attests to the fact that the power of
\nmaking promises has occupied the center of political thought
\nover the centuries.\u2019 Most vivid is the operation of the contract
\nas it enhances the mastery of individuals and the resilience of
\nsociety. These goods derive precisely from the unpredictability
\n\u2018which the act of making promises at least partially dispels \u2026\u2019
\nFor Arendt, human fallibility in the execution of contracts is
\nthe price of freedom. The impossibility of perfect control
\nwithin a community of equals is the consequence of \u2018plurality
\nand reality \u2026 the joy of inhabiting together with others a
\nworld whose reality is guaranteed for each by the presence of
\nall.\u2019 Arendt insists that \u2018the force of mutual promise or
\ncontract\u2019 is the only alternative \u2018to a mastery which relies on
\ndomination of one\u2019s self and rule over others; it corresponds
\nexactly to the existence of freedom which was given under the
\ncondition of non-sovereignty\u2019 (1998: 244).
\nIn contrast to Arendt, Varian\u2019s vision of a computermediated world strikes me as an arid wasteland \u2013 not a
\ncommunity of equals bound through laws in the inevitable
\nand ultimately fruitful human struggle with uncertainty. In
\nthis futurescape, the human community has already failed. It
\nis a place adapted to the normalization of chaos and terror
\nwhere the last vestiges of trust have long since withered and
\ndied. Human replenishment from the failures and triumphs of
\nasserting predictability and exercising over will in the face of
\nnatural uncertainty gives way to the blankness of perpetual
\ncompliance. Rather than enabling new contractual forms,
\nthese arrangements describe the rise of a new universal
\narchitecture existing somewhere between nature and God that
\nI christen Big Other. It is a ubiquitous networked institutional
\nregime that records, modifies, and commodifies everyday
\nexperience from toasters to bodies, communication to
\nthought, all with a view to establishing new pathways to
\nmonetization and profit. Big Other is the sovereign power of
\na near future that annihilates the freedom achieved by the rule
\nof law. It is a new regime of independent and independently
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n81
\ncontrolled facts that supplants the need for contracts, governance, and the dynamism of a market democracy. Big Other is
\nthe 21st-century incarnation of the electronic text that aspires
\nto encompass and reveal the comprehensive immanent facts of
\nmarket, social, physical, and biological behaviors. The institutional processes that constitute the architecture of Big Other
\ncan be imagined as the material instantiation of Hayek\u2019s
\n\u2018extended order\u2019 come to life in the explicated transparency
\nof computer-mediation.
\nThese processes reconfigure the structure of power, conformity, and resistance inherited from mass society and
\nsymbolized for over half a century as Big Brother. Power can
\nno longer be summarized by that totalitarian symbol of
\ncentralized command and control. Even the panopticon of
\nBentham\u2019s design, which I used as a central metaphor in my
\nearlier work (Zuboff, 1988, Ch. 9,10), is prosaic compared to
\nthis new architecture. The panopticon was a physical design
\nthat privileged a single point of observation. The anticipatory
\nconformity it induced required the cunning production of
\nspecific behaviors while one was inside the panopticon, but
\nthat behavior could be set aside once one exited that physical
\nplace. In the 1980s it was an apt metaphor for the hierarchical
\nspaces of the workplace. In the world implied by Varian\u2019s
\nassumptions, habitats inside and outside the human body are
\nsaturated with data and produce radically distributed opportunities for observation, interpretation, communication, influence, prediction, and ultimately modification of the totality of
\naction. Unlike the centralized power of mass society, there is
\nno escape from Big Other. There is no place to be where the
\nOther is not.
\nIn this world of no escape, the chilling effects of anticipatory
\nconformity9 give way as the mental agency and self-possession
\nof anticipation is gradually submerged into a new kind of
\nautomaticity. Anticipatory conformity assumes a point of
\norigin in consciousness from which a choice is made to
\nconform for the purposes of evasion of sanctions and social
\ncamouflage. It also implies a difference, or at least the
\npossibility of a difference, between the behavior one would
\nhave performed and the behavior one chooses to perform as
\nan instrumental solution to invasive power. In a world of Big
\nOther, without avenues of escape, the agency implied in the
\nwork of anticipation is gradually submerged into a new kind of
\nautomaticity \u2013 a lived experience of pure stimulus-response.
\nConformity is no longer a 20th century-style act of submission
\nto the mass or group, no loss of self to the collective produced
\nby fear or compulsion, no psychological craving for acceptance and belonging. Conformity now disappears into the
\nmechanical order of things and bodies, not as action but as
\nresult, not cause but effect. Each one of us may follow a
\ndistinct path, but that path is already shaped by the financial
\nand, or, ideological interests that imbue Big Other and invade
\nevery aspect of \u2018one\u2019s own\u2019 life. False consciousness is no
\nlonger produced by the hidden facts of class and their relation
\nto production, but rather by the hidden facts of commoditized
\nbehavior modification. If power was once identified with the
\nownership of the means of production, it is now identified
\nwith ownership of the means of behavioral modification.
\nIndeed, there is little difference between the ineffable
\n\u2018extended order\u2019 of the neoliberal ideal and the \u2018vortex of
\nstimuli\u2019 responsible for all action in the vision of the classical
\ntheorists of behavioral psychology. In both worldviews,
\nhuman autonomy is irrelevant and the lived experience of
\npsychological self-determination is a cruel illusion. Varian
\nadds a new dimension to both hegemonic ideals in that now
\nthis \u2018God view\u2019 can be fully explicated, specified, and known,
\neliminating all uncertainty. The result is that human persons
\nare reduced to a mere animal condition, bent to serve the new
\nlaws of capital imposed on all behavior through an implacable
\nfeed of ubiquitous fact-based real-time records of all things
\nand creatures. Hannah Arendt treated these themes decades
\nago with remarkable insight as she lamented the devolution of
\nour conception of \u2018thought\u2019 to something that is accomplished
\nby a \u2018brain\u2019 and is therefore transferable to \u2018electronic
\ninstruments\u2019:
\nThe last stage of the laboring society, the society of jobholders,
\ndemands of its members a sheer automatic functioning, as
\nthough individual life had actually been submerged in the
\nover-all life process of the species and the only active decision
\nstill required of the individual were to let go, so to speak, to
\nabandon his individuality, the still individually sensed pain
\nand trouble of living, and acquiesce in a dazed, \u2018tranquilized,\u2019
\nfunctional type of behavior. The trouble with modern theories
\nof behaviorism is not that they are wrong but that they could
\nbecome true, that they actually are the best possible conceptualization of certain obvious trends in modern society. It is
\nquite conceivable that the modern age \u2013 which began with
\nsuch an unprecedented and promising outburst of human
\nactivity \u2013 may end in the deadliest, most sterile passivity
\nhistory has ever known.
\n(Arendt, 1998: 322)
\nSurveillance capitalism establishes a new form of power in
\nwhich contract and the rule of law are supplanted by the
\nrewards and punishments of a new kind of invisible hand.
\nA more complete theorization of this new power, while a
\ncentral concern of my new work, exceeds the scope of this
\narticle. I do want to highlight, however, a few key themes that
\ncan help us appreciate the unique character of surveillance
\ncapitalism.
\nAccording to Varian, people agree to the \u2018invasion of
\nprivacy\u2019 represented by Big Other if they \u2018get something they
\nwant in return \u2026 a mortgage, medical advice, legal advice \u2013 or
\nadvice from your personal digital Helpant\u2019 (2014: 30). He is
\nquoted in a similar vein by a PEW Research report, \u2018Digital
\nLife in 2025:\u2019 \u2018There is no putting the genie back in the bottle
\n\u2026 Everyone will expect to be tracked and monitored, since the
\nadvantages, in terms of convenience, safety, and services, will
\nbe so great \u2026 continuous monitoring will be the norm (PEW
\nResearch, 2014). How to establish the validity of this assertion?
\nTo what extent are these supposed reciprocities the product of
\ngenuine consent? This question opens the way to another
\nradical, perhaps even revolutionary, aspect of the politics of
\nsurveillance capitalism. This concerns the distribution of
\nprivacy rights and with it the knowledge of and choice to
\naccede to Big Other.
\nCovert data capture is often regarded as a violation,
\ninvasion, or erosion of privacy rights, as Varian\u2019s language
\nsuggests. In the conventional narrative of the privacy threat,
\ninstitutional secrecy has grown, and individual privacy rights
\nhave been eroded. But that framing is misleading, because
\nprivacy and secrecy are not opposites but rather moments in a
\nsequence. Secrecy is an effect of privacy, which is its cause.
\nExercising one\u2019s right to privacy produces choice, and one can
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n82
\nchoose to keep something secret or to share it. Privacy rights
\nthus confer decision rights; privacy enables a decision as to
\nwhere one wants to be on the spectrum between secrecy and
\ntransparency in each situation. US Supreme Court Justice
\nDouglas articulated this view of privacy in 1967: \u2018Privacy
\ninvolves the choice of the individual to disclose or to reveal
\nwhat he believes, what he thinks, what he possesses \u2026\u2019
\n(Warden v. Hayden, 387 US 294,323, 1967, Douglas, J.,
\ndissenting, quoted in Farahany, 2012: 1271).
\nThe work of surveillance, it appears, is not to erode privacy
\nrights but rather to redistribute them. Instead of many people
\nhaving some privacy rights, these rights have been concentrated within the surveillance regime. Surveillance capitalists
\nhave extensive privacy rights and therefore many opportunities for secrets. These are increasingly used to deprive
\npopulations of choice in the matter of what about their lives
\nremains secret. This concentration of rights is accomplished in
\ntwo ways. In the case of Google, Facebook, and other
\nexemplars of surveillance capitalism, many of their rights
\nappear to come from taking others\u2019 without asking \u2013 in
\nconformance with the Street View model. Surveillance capitalists have skillfully exploited a lag in social evolution as the
\nrapid development of their abilities to surveil for profit outrun
\npublic understanding and the eventual development of law
\nand regulation that it produces. In result, privacy rights, once
\naccumulated and asserted, can then be invoked as legitimation
\nfor maintaining the obscurity of surveillance operations.10
\nThe mechanisms of this growing concentration of privacy
\nrights and its implications received significant scrutiny from
\nlegal scholars in the US and Europe, even before Edward
\nSnowden accelerated the discussion. This is a rich and growing
\nliterature that raises many substantial concerns associated
\nwith the anti-democratic implications of the concentration of
\nprivacy rights among private and public surveillance actors
\n(Schwartz, 1989; Solove, 2007; Michaels, 2008; Palfrey, 2008;
\nSemitsu, 2011; Richards, 2013; Calo, 2014; Reidenberg, 2014;
\nRichards and King, 2014). The global reach and implications
\nof this extraction of rights \u2013 as well as data \u2013 present many
\nchallenges for conceptualization, including how to overcome
\nthe very secrecy that makes them problematic in the first
\nplace. Further, the dynamics I describe occur in what was until
\nquite recently a blank area \u2013 one that is not easily captured by
\nour existing social, economic, and political categories. The
\nnew business operations frequently elude existing mental
\nmodels and defy conventional expectations.
\nThese arguments suggest that the logic of accumulation that
\nundergirds surveillance capitalism is not wholly captured by the
\nconventional institutional terrain of the private firm. What is
\naccumulated here is not only surveillance assets and capital, but
\nalso rights. This occurs through a unique assemblage of business
\nprocesses that operate outside the auspices of legitimate democratic mechanisms or the traditional market pressures of consumer reciprocity and choice. It is accomplished through a form
\nof unilateral declaration that most closely resembles the social
\nrelations of a pre-modern absolutist authority. In the context of
\nthis new market form that I call surveillance capitalism, hyperscale becomes a profoundly anti-democratic threat.
\nSurveillance capitalism thus qualifies as a new logic of
\naccumulation with a new politics and social relations that
\nreplaces contracts, the rule of law, and social trust with the
\nsovereignty of Big Other. It imposes a privately administered
\ncompliance regime of rewards and punishments that is
\nsustained by a unilateral redistribution of rights. Big Other
\nexists in the absence of legitimate authority and is largely free
\nfrom detection or sanction. In this sense Big Other may be
\ndescribed as an automated coup from above: not a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat,
\nbut rather a coup des gens.
\nPersonalization and communication
\nVarian claims that \u2018nowadays, people have come to expect
\npersonalized search results and ads.\u2019 He says that Google
\nwants to do even more. Instead of having to ask Google
\nquestions, it should \u2018know what you want and tell you before
\nyou ask the question.\u2019 \u2018That vision,\u2019 he asserts, \u2018has now been
\nrealized by Google Now \u2026\u2019 Varian concedes that \u2018Google
\nNow has to know a lot about you and your environment to
\nprovide these services. This worries some people\u2019 (2014: 28).
\nHowever, Varian reasons that people share such knowledge
\nwith doctors, lawyers, and accountants whom they trust. He
\nthen continues, \u2018Why am I willing to share all this private
\ninformation? Because I get something in return \u2026\u2019 (2014: 28).
\nIn fact, surveillance capitalism is the precise opposite of the
\ntrust-based relationships to which Varian refers. Doctors,
\nattorneys, and other trusted professionals are held to account
\nby mutual dependencies and reciprocities overlain by the force
\nof professional sanction and public law. Google, as we have seen,
\ndoes not bear such burdens. Its formal indifference and distance
\nfrom \u2018users,\u2019 combined with its current freedom from meaningful regulation, sanction, or law, buffer it and other surveillance capitalists from the consequences of mistrust. Instead of
\nVarian\u2019s implied reciprocities, the coup des gens introduces
\nsubstantial new asymmetries of knowledge and power.
\nFor example, Google knows far more about its populations
\nthan they know about themselves. Indeed, there are no means
\nby which populations can cross this divide, given the material,
\nintellectual, and proprietary hurdles required for data analysis
\nand the absence of feedback loops. Another asymmetry is
\nreflected in the fact that the typical user has little or no
\nknowledge of Google\u2019s business operations, the full range of
\npersonal data that they contribute to Google\u2019s servers, the
\nretention of those data, or how those data are instrumentalized
\nand monetized. It is by now well known that users have few
\nmeaningful options for privacy self-management (for a recent
\nreview of the \u2018consent dilemma,\u2019 see Solove, 2013). Surveillance capitalism thrives on the public\u2019s ignorance.
\nThese asymmetries in knowledge are sustained by asymmetries of power. Big Other is institutionalized in the automatic
\nundetectable functions of a global infrastructure that is also
\nregarded by most people as essential for basic social participation. The tools on offer by Google and other surveillance
\ncapitalist firms respond to the needs of beleaguered second
\nmodernity individuals \u2013 like the apple in the garden, once
\ntasted they are impossible to live without. When Facebook
\ncrashed in some US cities for a few hours during the summer
\nof 2014, many Americans called their local emergency services
\nat 911 (LA Times, 2014). Google\u2019s tools are not the objects of a
\nvalue exchange. They do not establish constructive producerconsumer reciprocities. Instead they are the \u2018hooks\u2019 that lure
\nusers into extractive operations and turn ordinary life into the
\ndaily renewal of a 21st-century Faustian pact. This social
\ndependency is at the heart of the surveillance project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees). Powerful
\nfelt needs for effective life vie against the inclination to resist
\nthe surveillance project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees). This conflict produces a kind of
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n83
\npsychic numbing that inures people to the realities of being
\ntracked, parsed, mined, and modified \u2013 or disposes them to
\nrationalize the situation in resigned cynicism (Hoofnagle et al.,
\n2010). The key point here is that this Faustian deal is
\nfundamentally illegitimate; it is a choice that \u201321st-century
\nindividuals should not have to make. In the world of
\nsurveillance capitalism, the Faustian pact required to \u2018get
\nsomething in return\u2019 eliminates the older entanglements of
\nreciprocity and trust in favor of a wary resentment, frustration, active defense, and, or, desensitization.
\nVarian\u2019s confidence in Google Now appears to be buoyed
\nby the facts of inequality. He counsels that the way to predict
\nthe future is to observe what rich people have, because that is
\nwhat the middle class and the poor will want too. \u2018What do
\nrich people have now?\u2019 he asks. \u2018Personal Helpants\u2019 is his
\nanswer. The solution? \u2018That\u2019s Google Now (2014: 29),\u2019 he says.
\nVarian\u2019s bet is that Google Now will be so vital a resource in
\nthe struggle for effective life that ordinary people will accede to
\nthe \u2018invasions of privacy\u2019 that are its quid pro quo.
\nIn this formulation Varian exploits a longstanding insight
\nof capitalism but bends it to the objectives of the surveillance
\nproject ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees). Adam Smith wrote insightfully on the evolution of
\nluxuries into necessities. Goods in use among the upper class
\nand deemed to be luxuries can in time be recast as \u2018necessaries,\u2019 he noted. The process occurs as \u2018the established rules of
\ndecency\u2019 change to reflect new customs and patterns introduced by elites. These changing rules both reflect and trigger
\nnew lower cost production methods that transform former
\nluxuries into affordable necessities (Smith, 1994: 938\u2013939).
\nScholars of early modern consumption describe the \u2018consumer
\nboom\u2019 that ignited the first industrial revolution in late 18thcentury Britain as new middle-class families began to buy the
\nsorts of goods \u2013 china, furniture, textiles \u2013 that only the rich
\nhad enjoyed. Historian Neil McKendrick describes this new
\n\u2018propensity to consume \u2026 unprecedented in the depth to
\nwhich it penetrated the lower reaches of society \u2026\u2019
\n(McKendrick, 1982: 11) as luxuries were reinterpreted as
\n\u2018decencies\u2019 and those were reinterpreted as \u2018necessities\u2019
\n(Weatherill, 1993). In 1767, the political economist Nathaniel
\nForster worried that \u2018fashionable luxury\u2019 was spreading \u2018like a
\ncontagion,\u2019 as he complained of the \u2018perpetual restless ambition in each of the inferior ranks to raise themselves to the
\nlevel of those immediately above them\u2019 (Forster, 1767: 41).
\nHistorically, this powerful evolutionary characteristic of
\ndemand led to the expansion of production, jobs, higher
\nwages, and lower cost goods. Varian has no such reciprocities
\nin mind. Instead, he regards this mechanism of demand
\ngrowth as the inevitable force that will push ordinary people
\ninto Google Now\u2019s Faustian pact of \u2018necessaries\u2019 in return for
\nsurveillance assets.
\nVarian is confident that psychic numbing will ease the way
\nfor this unsavory drama. He writes, \u2018Of course there will be
\nchallenges. But these digital Helpants will be so useful that
\neveryone will want one, and the statements you read today
\nabout them will just seem quaint and old fashioned\u2019 (2014:
\n29). But perhaps not. There is a growing body of evidence to
\nsuggest that people in many countries may resist the coup des
\ngens as trust in the surveillance capitalists is hollowed out by
\nfresh outbreaks of evidence that suggest the remorseless
\nprospect of Varian\u2019s future society. These issues are now a
\nmatter of serious political debate within Germany and the EU
\nwhere proposals to \u2018break up\u2019 Google are already being
\ndiscussed (Mance et al., 2014; see also Barker and FontanellaKhan, 2014; D\u00f6pfner, 2014; Gabriel, 2014; Vasagar, 2014).
\nA recent survey by the Financial Times indicates that both
\nEuropeans and Americans are substantially altering their
\nonline behavior as they seek more privacy (Kwong, 2014).
\nOne group of scholars behind a major study of youth online
\nbehavior concludes that a \u2018lack of knowledge\u2019 rather than a
\n\u2018cavalier attitude toward privacy,\u2019 as tech leaders have alleged,
\nis an important reason why large numbers of youth \u2018engage
\nwith the digital world in a seemingly unconcerned manner\u2019
\n(Hoofnagle et al., 2010). New legal scholarship reveals the
\nconsumer harm in lost privacy associated with Google and
\nsurveillance capitalism (Newman, 2014). WikiLeaks founder,
\nJulian Assange, has published a sobering account of Google\u2019s
\nleadership, politics, and global ambitions (Assange, 2014).
\nThe PEW Research Center\u2019s latest report on public perceptions of privacy in the post-Snowden Era indicates that 91% of
\nUS adults agree or strongly agree that consumers have lost
\ncontrol over their personal data, while only 55% agree or
\nstrongly agree that they are willing to \u2018share some information
\nabout myself with companies in order to use online services
\nfor free\u2019 (Madden, 2014).
\nContinuous experiments
\nBecause \u2018big data\u2019 analysis yields only correlational patterns,
\nVarian advises the need for continuous experiments that can
\ntease out issues of causality. Such experiments \u2018are easy to do
\non the web,\u2019 assigning treatment and control groups based
\non traffic, cookies, usernames, geographic areas, and so on
\n(2014: 29). Google has been so successful at experimentation
\nthat they have shared their techniques with advertisers and
\npublishers. Facebook has consistently made inroads here too,
\nas it conducts experiments in modifying users\u2019 behavior with
\na view to eventually monetizing its knowledge, predictive
\ncapability, and control. Whenever these experiments have
\nbeen revealed, however, they have ignited fierce public debate
\n(Bond et al., 2012; Flynn, 2014; Gapper, 2014; Goel, 2014;
\nKramer et al., 2014; Lanier, 2014; Zittrain, 2014).
\nVarian\u2019s enthusiasm for experimentation speaks to a larger
\npoint, however. The business opportunities associated with
\nthe new data flows entail a shift from the a posteriori analysis
\nto which Constantiou and Kallinikos (2014) refer, to the realtime observation, communication, analysis, prediction, and
\nmodification of actual behavior now and soon (Foroohar,
\n2014; Gibbs, 2014; Lin, 2014; Trotman, 2014; Waters, 2014).
\nThis entails another shift in the source of surveillance assets
\nfrom virtual behavior to actual behavior, while monetization
\nopportunities are refocused to blend virtual and actual behavior. This is a new business frontier comprised of knowledge
\nabout real-time behavior that creates opportunities to intervene in and modify behavior for profit. The two entities at the
\nvanguard of this new wave of \u2018reality mining,\u2019 \u2018patterns of life
\nanalysis,\u2019 and \u2018predictive analytics\u2019 are Google and the NSA.
\nAs the White House report puts it, \u2018there is a growing
\npotential for big data analytics to have an immediate effect
\non a person\u2019s surrounding environment or decisions being
\nmade about his or her life\u2019 (2014: 5). This is what I call the
\nreality business, and it reflects an evolution in the frontier of
\ndata science from data mining to reality mining in which,
\naccording to MIT\u2019s Sandy Pentland, \u2018sensors, mobile phones,
\nand other data capture devices\u2019 provide the \u2018eyes and ears\u2019 of a
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n84
\n\u2018world-spanning living organism\u2019 from \u2018a God\u2019s eye view\u2019
\n(Pentland, 2009: 76, 80). This is yet another rendering of the
\n\u2018extended order,\u2019 fully explicated by computer-mediation. The
\nelectronic text of the informated workplace has morphed into a
\nworld-spanning living organism \u2013 an inter-operational, behavior-modifying, market-making, and proprietary God view.
\nNearly 70 years ago historian Karl Polanyi observed that the
\nmarket economies of the 19th and 20th centuries depended
\nupon three astonishing mental inventions that he called
\n\u2018fictions.\u2019 The first was that human life can be subordinated
\nto market dynamics and be reborn as \u2018labor.\u2019 Second, nature
\ncan be subordinated and reborn as \u2018real estate.\u2019 Third, that
\nexchange can be reborn as \u2018money.\u2019 The very possibility of
\nindustrial capitalism depended upon the creation of these
\nthree critical \u2018fictional commodities.\u2019 Life, nature, and
\nexchange were transformed into things, that they might be
\nprofitably bought and sold. \u2018[T]he commodity fiction,\u2019 he
\nwrote, \u2018disregarded the fact that leaving the fate of soil and
\npeople to the market would be tantamount to annihilating
\nthem.\u2019
\nWith the new logic of accumulation that is surveillance
\ncapitalism, a fourth fictional commodity emerges as a dominant characteristic of market dynamics in the 21st century.
\nReality itself is undergoing the same kind of fictional metamorphosis as did persons, nature, and exchange. Now \u2018reality\u2019
\nis subjugated to commodification and monetization and
\nreborn as \u2018behavior.\u2019 Data about the behaviors of bodies,
\nminds, and things take their place in a universal real-time
\ndynamic index of smart objects within an infinite global
\ndomain of wired things. This new phenomenon produces the
\npossibility of modifying the behaviors of persons and things
\nfor profit and control. In the logic of surveillance capitalism
\nthere are no individuals, only the world-spanning organism
\nand all the tiniest elements within it.
\nConclusion
\nTechnologies are constituted by unique affordances, but the
\ndevelopment and expression of those affordances are shaped by
\nthe institutional logics in which technologies are designed,
\nimplemented, and used. This is, after all, the origin of the hack.
\nHacking intends to liberate affordances from the institutional
\nlogics in which they are frozen and redistribute them in
\nalternative configurations for new purposes. In the market
\nsphere, these circumscribing logics are logics of accumulation.
\nWith this view in mind, my aim has been to begin to identify and
\ntheorize the currently institutionalizing logic of accumulation
\nthat produces hyperscale assemblages of objective and subjective
\ndata about individuals and their habitats for the purposes of
\nknowing, controlling, and modifying behavior to produce new
\nvarieties of commodification, monetization, and control.
\nThe development of the Internet and methods to access the
\nWorld Wide Web spread computer mediation from bounded
\nsites of work and specialized action to global ubiquity both at
\nthe institutional interface and in the intimate spheres of
\neveryday experience. High tech firms, led by Google, perceived
\nnew profit opportunities in these facts. Google understood
\nthat were it to capture more of these data, store them, and
\nanalyze them, they could substantially affect the value of
\nadvertising. As Google\u2019s capabilities in this arena developed
\nand attracted historic levels of profit, it produced successively
\nambitious practices that expand the data lens from past virtual
\nbehavior to current and future actual behavior. New monetization opportunities are thus associated with a new global
\narchitecture of data capture and analysis that produces
\nrewards and punishments aimed at modifying and commoditizing behavior for profit.
\nMany of the practices associated with capitalizing on these
\nnewly perceived opportunities challenged social norms associated with privacy and are contested as violations of rights
\nand laws. In result, Google and other actors learned to obscure
\ntheir operations, choosing to invade undefended individual
\nand social territory until opposition is encountered, at which
\npoint they can use their substantial resources to defend at low
\ncost what had already been taken. In this way, surveillance
\nassets are accumulated and attract significant surveillance
\ncapital while producing their own surprising new politics and
\nsocial relations.
\nThese new institutional facts have been allowed to stand for
\na variety of reasons: they were constructed at high velocity and
\ndesigned to be undetectable. Outside a narrow realm of
\nexperts, few people understood their meaning. Structural
\nasymmetries of knowledge and rights made it impossible for
\npeople to learn about these practices. Leading tech companies
\nwere respected and treated as emissaries of the future. Nothing
\nin past experience prepared people for these new practices,
\nand so there were few defensive barriers for protection.
\nIndividuals quickly came to depend upon the new information
\nand communication tools as necessary resources in the
\nincreasingly stressful, competitive, and stratified struggle for
\neffective life. The new tools, networks, apps, platforms, and
\nmedia thus became requirements for social participation.
\nFinally, the rapid buildup of institutionalized facts \u2013 data
\nbrokerage, data analytics, data mining, professional specializations, unimaginable cash flows, powerful network effects, state
\ncollaboration, hyperscale material assets, and unprecedented
\nconcentrations of information power \u2013 produced an overwhelming sense of inevitability.
\nThese developments became the basis for a fully institutionalized new logic of accumulation that I have called surveillance capitalism. In this new regime, a global architecture of
\ncomputer mediation turns the electronic text of the bounded
\norganization into an intelligent world-spanning organism that
\nI call Big Other. New possibilities of subjugation are produced
\nas this innovative institutional logic thrives on unexpected and
\nillegible mechanisms of extraction and control that exile
\npersons from their own behavior.
\nUnder these conditions, the division of learning and its
\ncontests are civilizational in scope. To the question \u2018who
\nparticipates?\u2019 the answer is \u2013 those with the material, knowledge, and financial resources to access Big Other. To the
\nquestion \u2018who decides?\u2019 the answer is, access to Big Other is
\ndecided by new markets in the commodification of behavior:
\nmarkets in behavioral control. These are composed of those
\nwho sell opportunities to influence behavior for profit and
\nthose who purchase such opportunities. Thus Google, for
\nexample, may sell access to an insurance company, and this
\ncompany purchases the right to intervene in an information
\nloop in your car or your kitchen in order to increase its
\nrevenues or reduce its costs. It may shut off your car, because
\nyou are driving too fast. It may lock your fridge when you put
\nyourself at risk of heart disease or diabetes by eating too much
\nice cream. You might then face the prospect of either higher
\npremiums or loss of coverage. Google\u2019s Chief Economist Hal
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n85
\nVarian celebrates such possibilities as new forms of contract,
\nwhen in fact they represent the end of contracts. Google\u2019s
\nrendering of information civilization replaces the rule of law
\nand the necessity of social trust as the basis for human
\ncommunities with a new life-world of rewards and punishments, stimulus and response. Surveillance capitalism offers a
\nnew regime of comprehensive facts and compliance with facts.
\nIt is, I have suggested, a coup from above \u2013 the installation of a
\nnew kind of sovereign power.
\nThe automated ubiquitous architecture of Big Other, its
\nderivation in surveillance assets, and its function as pervasive
\nsurveillance, highlights other surprising new features of this
\nlogic of accumulation. It undermines the historical relationship
\nbetween markets and democracies, as it structures the firm as
\nformally indifferent to and radically distant from its populations.
\nSurveillance capitalism is immune to the traditional reciprocities
\nin which populations and capitalists needed one another for
\nemployment and consumption. In this new model, populations
\nare targets of data extraction. This radical disembedding from
\nthe social is another aspect of surveillance capitalism\u2019s antidemocratic character. Under surveillance capitalism, democracy
\nno longer functions as a means to prosperity; democracy
\nthreatens surveillance revenues.
\nWill surveillance capitalism be the hegemonic logic of
\naccumulation in our time, or will it be an evolutionary deadend that cedes to other emerging information-based market
\nforms? What alternative trajectories to the future might be
\nassociated with these competing forms? I suggest that the
\nprospects of information civilization rest on the answers to
\nthese questions. There are many dimensions of surveillance
\ncapitalism that require careful analysis and theorization if
\nwe are to reckon with these prospects. One obvious dimension is the imbrication of public and private authority in the
\nsurveillance project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees). Since Edward Snowden, we have
\nlearned of the blurring of public and private boundaries in
\nsurveillance activities including collaborations and constructive interdependencies between state security authorities and high tech firms. Another key set of issues involves
\nthe relationship of surveillance capitalism \u2013 and its potential
\ncompetitors \u2013 to overarching global concerns such as
\nequality and climate disruptions that effect all our future
\nprospects. A third issue concerns the velocity of social
\nevolution compared to that at which the surveillance project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees)
\nis institutionalized. It seems clear that the waves of lawsuits
\nbreaking on the shores of the new surveillance fortress are
\nunlikely to alter the behavior of surveillance capitalists.
\nWere surveillance capitalists to abandon their contested
\npractices according to the demands of aggrieved parties, the
\nvery logic of accumulation responsible for their rapid rise to
\nimmense wealth and historic concentrations of power
\nwould be undermined. The value of the steady flow of legal
\nactions is rather to establish new precedents and ultimately
\nnew laws. The question is whether the lag in social evolution
\ncan be remedied before the full consequences of the
\nsurveillance project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees) take hold.
\nFinally, and most important for all scholars and citizens, is
\nthe fact that we are at the very beginning of the narrative that
\nwill carry us toward new answers. The trajectory of this
\nnarrative depends in no small measure on the scholars drawn
\nto this frontier project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees) and the citizens who act in the knowledge that deception-induced ignorance is no social contract,
\nand freedom from uncertainty is no freedom.
\nNotes
\n1 For a recent example of this, see \u2018JetBlue to Add Bag Fees, Cut
\nLegroom\u2019 (Nicas, 2014).
\n2 See Braudel\u2019s discussion on this point (1984: 620).
\n3 Consider that in 1986 there were 2.5 optimally compressed
\nexabytes, only 1% of which were digitized (Hilbert, 2013: 4). In
\n2000, only a quarter of the world\u2019s stored information was digital
\n(Mayer-Sch\u00f6nberger and Cukier, 2013: 9). By 2007, there were
\naround 300 optimally compressed exabytes with 94% digitized
\n(Hilbert, 2013: 4). Digitization and datafication (the application of
\nsoftware that allows computers and algorithms to process and
\nanalyze raw data) combined with new and cheaper storage
\ntechnologies produced 1200 exabytes of data stored worldwide
\nin 2013 with 98% digital content (Mayer-Sch\u00f6nberger and
\nCukier, 2013: 9).
\n4 The EU Court\u2019s 2014 ruling on the \u2018right to be forgotten\u2019 arguably
\nrepresents the first time that Google has been forced to
\nsubstantially alter its practices as an adaptation to regulatory
\ndemands \u2013 the first chapter of what is sure to be an evolving story.
\n5 For an extended discussion of this theme, see Zuboff and Maxmin
\n(2002, especially chapters 4, 6, and 10).
\n6 With the competitive advantage of Google\u2019s exponentially
\nexpanding data capture, Google\u2019s ad revenues jumped from $21
\nbillion in 2008 to over $50 billion in 2013. By February 2014, 15
\nyears after its founding, Google\u2019s $400 billion dollar market value
\nedged out Exxon for the #2 spot in market capitalization, making
\nit the second richest company after Apple (Farzad, 2014).
\n7 Consider these facts in relation to Google and Facebook, the most
\nhyper of the hyperscale firms. Google processes four billion
\nsearches a day. A 2009 presentation by Google engineer Jeff
\nDean indicated that it was planning the capacity for ten million
\nservers and an exabyte of information. His technical article
\npublished in 2008 described new analytics that allowed Google
\nto process 20 petabytes of data per day (1000 petabytes= 1
\nexabyte), or about 7 exabytes a year (Dean and Ghemawat, 2008;
\nDean, 2009). One analyst observed that these numbers have likely
\nbeen substantially exceeded by now, \u2018particularly given the
\nvolume of data being uploaded to YouTube, which alone has 72h
\nworth of video uploaded every minute\u2019 (Wallbank, 2012). As for
\nFacebook, it has more than a billion users. At the time of its float
\non the US stock market in 2012, it claimed to have more than
\nseven billion photos uploaded each month and more than 100
\npetabytes of photos and videos stored in its servers (Ziegler,
\n2012).
\n8 Smaller firms without hyperscale revenues can leverage some of
\nthese capabilities with cloud computing services (Manyika and
\nChui, 2014; M\u00fcnstermann et al., 2014).
\n9 See my discussion of anticipatory conformity in Zuboff (1988:
\n346\u2013356). For an update, see recent research on Internet search
\nbehavior in Marthews and Tucker (2014).
\n10 This process is apparantly exemplified in the US federal lawsuit
\nconcerning Google\u2019s data mining of student emails sent and received
\nby users of its Apps for Education cloud service. See Herold (2014).
\nReferences
\nAcemoglu, D. and Robinson, J.A. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The origins of power,
\nprosperity, and poverty, New York, NY: Crown Business.
\nAnderson, N. (2010). Why Google keeps your data forever, tracks you with ads,
\nArsTechnica.8 March [WWW document] http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/
\nnews\/2010\/03\/google-keeps-your-data-to-learn-from-good-guys-fight-off-badguys.ars(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n86
\nAngwin, J. (2012). Google faces new privacy probes, Wall Street Journal. 16 March
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/articles\/SB100014240527023046
\n92804577283821586827892 (accessed 21 November 2014).
\nAngwin, J. (2014). Dragnet Nation: A quest for privacy, security, and freedom in a
\nworld of relentless surveillance, New York: Times Books.
\nArendt, H. (1998). The Human Condition, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
\nAssange, J. (2014). When Google Met WikiLeaks, New York, NY: OR Books.
\nAuletta, K. (2009). Googled: The end of the world as we know it, New York, NY:
\nPenguin Books.
\nBarker, A. and Fontanella-Khan, J. (2014). Google feels political wind shift against
\nit in Europe, Financial Times. 21 May [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/
\nintl\/cms\/s\/2\/7848572e-e0c1-11e3-a934-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3JjXPNno5
\n(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nBBC (2010). Internet access \u2018a human right\u2019, BBC News. 8 March [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/8548190.stm.
\nBBC News (2014). Wearables tracked with Raspberry Pi. 1 August [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/technology-28602997 (accessed 22
\nNovember 2014).
\nBenkler, Y. (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How social production transforms
\nmarkets and freedom, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
\nBerle, A.A. and Means, G.C. (1991). The Modern Corporation and Private
\nProperty, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
\nBhimani, A. and Willcocks, L. (2014). Digitisation, \u2018Big Data\u2019 and the
\nTransformation of Accounting Information, Accounting and Business Research
\n44(4): 469\u2013490.
\nBond, R.M., Fariss, C.J., Jones, J.J., Kramer, A.D.I., Marlow, C., Settle, J.E. and
\nFowler, J.H. (2012). A 61-million-person Experiment in Social Influence and
\nPolitical Mobilization, Nature 482(Sept 13): 295.
\nboyd, danah and Crawford, K. (2011). Six provocations for big data. Presented at
\nthe A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and
\nSociety, Oxford Internet Institute. [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/
\nabstract=1926431.
\nBradshaw, T. (2014a). Google bets on \u2018internet of things\u2019 with $3.2bn Nest deal,
\nFinancial Times. , 13 January [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/
\n0\/90b8714a-7c99-11e3-b514-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3hbfec0he (accessed 22
\nNovember 2014).
\nBradshaw, T. (2014b). Google buys UK artificial intelligence start-up, Financial
\nTimes. 27 January [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/
\nf92123b2-8702-11e3-aa31-00144feab7de.html#axzz3HBfEc0HE (accessed 22
\nNovember 2014).
\nBraudel, F. (1984). The Perspective of the World, New York, NY: Harper & Row.
\nBrewster, T. (2014). Traffic lights, fridges and how they\u2019ve all got it in for us,
\nRegister. 23 June [WWW document] http:\/\/www.theregister.co.uk\/2014\/06\/23\/
\nhold_interthreat\/ (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nBurdon, M. and McKillop, A. (2013). The Google Street View Wi-Fi Scandal and
\nIts Repercussions for Privacy Regulation (Research Paper No. 14-07), University
\nof Queensland TC Beime School of Law. [WWW document] http:\/\/papers.ssrn.
\ncom\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2471316.
\nCalo, R. (2014). Digital Market Manipulation, George Washington Law Review
\n82(4): 995\u20131051.
\nChandler, Jr A.D. (1977). The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in
\nAmerican Business, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
\nCisco (2013a). Embracing the internet of everything to capture your share of $14.4
\ntrillion, Cisco Systems, Inc. [WWW document] http:\/\/www.cisco.com\/web\/
\nabout\/ac79\/docs\/innov\/IoE_Economy.pdf (accessed 9 June 2014).
\nCisco (2013b). The internet of everything: global private sector economic analysis,
\nCisco Systems, Inc. [WWW document] http:\/\/www.cisco.com\/web\/about\/ac79\/
\ndocs\/innov\/IoE_Economy_FAQ.pdf (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nCNIL (2014, September 25). Google privacy policy: WP29 proposes a compliance
\npackage, Commission Nationale de L\u2019informatique et Des Libert\u00e9s.
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/www.cnil.fr\/english\/news-and-events\/news\/article\/
\ngoogle-privacy-policy-wp29-proposes-a-compliance-package\/ (accessed 21
\nNovember 2014).
\nCohen, L. (2003). A Consumers\u2019 Republic: The politics of mass consumption in
\npostwar America, New York, NY: Knopf.
\nConstantiou, I.D. and Kallinikos, J. (2014). New Games, New Rules: Big data and
\nthe changing context of strategy, Journal of Information Technology, advance
\nonline publication 9 September, doi: 10.1057\/jit.2014.17.
\nDavis, G. (2011). The Twilight of the Berle and Means Corporation, Seattle
\nUniversity Law Review 34(4): 1121\u20131138.
\nDavis, G. (2013). After the Corporation, Politics & Society 41(2): 283\u2013308.
\nDean, J. (2009). Challenges in building large-scale information retrieval systems,
\nGoogle Fellow Presentation. [WWW document] http:\/\/static.googleusercontent.
\ncom\/media\/research.google.com\/en\/us\/people\/jeff\/WSDM09-keynote.pdf
\n(accessed 22 November 2014).
\nDean, J. and Ghemawat, S. (2008). MapReduce: Simplified data processing on
\nlarge clusters, Communications of the ACM 51(1): 107.
\nD\u00f6pfner, M. (2014). Why we fear Google, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/www.faz.net\/aktuell\/feuilleton\/debatten\/mathiasdoepfner-s-open-letter-to-eric-schmidt-12900860.html (accessed 17 April
\n2014).
\nDoyle, J. (2013, November 15). Google facing legal action in EVERY EU country
\nover \u2018data goldmine\u2019 collected about users, Daily Mail Online. [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sciencetech\/article-2302870\/Googlefacing-legal-action-EVERY-EU-country-data-goldmine-collected-users.html
\n(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nDurkheim, E. (1964). The Division of Labor in Society, New York, NY: Free Press.
\nDwoskin, E. (2014). What secrets your phone is sharing about you, Wall Street
\nJournal. 14 January [WWW document] http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/articles\/
\nSB10001424052702303453004579290632128929194.
\nEconomist (2014). The new GE: Google, everywhere. 18 January [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/business\/21594259-string-dealsinternet-giant-has-positioned-itself-become-big-inventor-and.
\nEPIC (2014a). Google glass and privacy, Electronic Privacy Information Center.
\n[WWW document] https:\/\/epic.org\/privacy\/google\/glass\/ (accessed 15
\nNovember 2014).
\nEPIC (2014b). Investigations of Google Street View, Electronic Privacy Information
\nCenter. [WWW document] https:\/\/epic.org\/privacy\/streetview\/ (accessed 21
\nNovember 2014).
\nFarahany, N.A. (2012). Searching Secrets, University of Pennsylvania Law Review
\n160(5): 1239\u20131308.
\nFarzad, R. (2014). Google at $400 billion: a new no. 2 in market cap,
\nBusinessWeek: Technology. 12 February [WWW document] http:\/\/www
\n.businessweek.com\/articles\/2014-02-12\/google-at-400-billion-a-new-no-dot2-in-market-cap.
\nFinamore, E. and Dutta, K. (2014). \u2018Summoning the demon\u2019: artificial intelligence
\nis real threat to humanity, says PayPal founder, The Independent. [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/life-style\/gadgets-and-tech\/news\/
\ntesla-boss-elon-musk-warns-artificial-intelligence-development-is-summoningthe-demon-9819760.html (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nFink, E. (2014). This drone can steal what\u2019s on your phone, CNNMoney. 20 March
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2014\/03\/20\/technology\/security\/
\ndrone-phone\/index.html (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nFlynn, K. (2014). Facebook will share users\u2019 political leanings with ABC news,
\nBuzzFeed, Huffington Post. 31 October [WWW document] http:\/\/www.
\nhuffingtonpost.com\/2014\/10\/31\/facebook-buzzfeed-politics_n_6082312.html
\n(accessed 22 November 2014).
\nForoohar, R. (2014). Tech titans are living in a na\u00efve, dangerously insular bubble,
\nTime. 24 January[WWW document] http:\/\/business.time.com\/2014\/01\/24\/ericschmidt-george-soros-a-tale-of-two-titans\/.
\nForster, N. (1767). An Enquiry into the Causes of the Present High Price of
\nProvisions, London, UK: J. Fletcher and Co.
\nGabriel, S. (2014). Sigmar Gabriel political consequences of the Google debate,
\nFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 20 May [WWW document] http:\/\/www.faz.net\/
\naktuell\/feuilleton\/debatten\/the-digital-debate\/sigmar-gabriel-consequences-ofthe-google-debate-12948701.html.
\nGapper, J. (2014). We are the product facebook has been testing, FT. [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/6576b0c2-0138-11e4-a938-
\n00144feab7de.html#axzz3R6dH0dDm (accessed 5 July 2014).
\nGarside, J. (2014). From Google to Amazon: EU goes to war against power of US
\ndigital giants, Guardian. 5 July [WWW document] http:\/\/www.theguardian.
\ncom\/technology\/2014\/jul\/06\/google-amazon-europe-goes-to-war-power-digitalgiants (accessed 21 November 2014).
\nGibbs, S. (2014). Google\u2019s founders on the future of health, transport \u2013 and robots,
\nGuardian. 7 July [WWW document] http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/
\n2014\/jul\/07\/google-founders-larry-page-sergey-brin-interview (accessed 21
\nNovember 2014).
\nHayek, F.A. (1988). The Fatal Conceit: The errors of socialism, Chicago, IL:
\nUniversity of Chicago Press.
\nHerold, B. (2014). Google under fire for data-mining student email messages \u2013
\neducation week, Education Week. 26 March [WWW document] http:\/\/www
\n.edweek.org\/ew\/articles\/2014\/03\/13\/26google.h33.html.
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n87
\nHilbert, M. (2013). Technological Information Inequality As an Incessantly
\nMoving Target: The redistribution of information and communication capacities
\nbetween 1986 and 2010, Journal of the American Society for Information Science
\nand Technology 65(4): 821\u2013835.
\nHoofnagle, C.J., King, J., Li, S. and Turow, J. (2010). How different are young
\nadults from older adults when it comes to information privacy attitudes and
\npolicies? SSRN Electronic Journal [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ssrn.com\/
\nabstract=1589864.
\nJammet, A. (2014). The Evolution of EU Law on the Protection of Personal Data,
\nCenter for European Law and Legal Studies 3(6): 1\u201318.
\nKelly, H. (2014). Smartphones are fading. Wearables are next,
\nCNNMoney. 19 March [WWW document] http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2014\/03\/
\n19\/technology\/mobile\/wearable-devices\/index.html (accessed 22 November
\n2014).
\nKopczynski, P. (2014). French consumer rights watchdog sues
\nGoogle, Facebook, Twitter for privacy violations, Reuters. 25 March
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/rt.com\/news\/france-facebook-google-suit-129\/
\n(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nKovach, S. (2013). Google\u2019s plan to take over the world, Business Insider. 18 May
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/googles-plan-to-take-overthe-world-2013-5 (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nKramer, A.D.I., Guillory, J.E. and Hancock, J.T. (2014). Experimental Evidence
\nof Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion through Social Networks, Proceedings of
\nthe National Academy of Sciences 111(24): 8788\u20138790.
\nKwong, R. (2014). Did privacy concerns change your online behaviour?, FT Data
\nBlog. 17 September [WWW document] http:\/\/blogs.ft.com\/ftdata\/2014\/09\/17\/
\ndidprivacy-concerns-change-your-online-behaviour\/ (accessed 21 November
\n2014).
\nLanier, J. (2013). Who Owns the Future? New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
\nLanier, J. (2014). Should Facebook manipulate users?: Lack of transparency in
\nFacebook study, The New York Times. 30 June [WWW document] http:\/\/www
\n.nytimes.com\/2014\/07\/01\/opinion\/jaron-lanier-on-lack-of-transparency-infacebook-study.html.
\nLA Times, A. T. S (2014, August 1). 911 calls about Facebook outage angers L.A.
\nCounty sheriff\u2019s officials, Los Angeles Times. [WWW document] http:\/\/www
\n.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-me-ln-911-calls-about-facebook-outage-angers-lasheriffs-officials-20140801-htmlstory.html.
\nLevy, S. (2009). Secret of googlenomics: data-fueled recipe brews profitability,
\nWired. [WWW document] http:\/\/archive.wired.com\/culture\/culturereviews\/
\nmagazine\/17-06\/nep_googlenomics (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nLin, P. (2014). What if your autonomous car keeps routing you past Krispy Kreme?
\nThe Atlantic. 22 January [WWW document] http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/
\ntechnology\/archive\/2014\/01\/what-if-your-autonomous-car-keeps-routing-youpast-krispy-kreme\/283221\/ (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nLocke, J. (2010). Two Treatises of Government. New York: Kessinger Publishing,
\nLLC.
\nMadden, M. (2014). Public perceptions of privacy and security in the postSnowden era [WWW document] http:\/\/www.pewinternet.org\/2014\/11\/12\/
\npublic-privacy-perceptions\/.
\nMance, H., Ahmed, M. and Barker, A. (2014). Google break-up plan emerges
\nfrom Brussels, Financial Times. 21 November [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.
\ncom\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/617568ea-71a1-11e4-9048-00144feabdc0.
\nhtml#axzz3JjXPNno5 (accessed 21 November 2014).
\nManyika, J. and Chui, M. (2014). Digital era brings hyperscale challenges,
\nFinancial Times. 13 August [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/
\nf30051b2-1e36-11e4-bb68-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3JjXPNno5
\n(accessed 22 November 2014).
\nMarthews, A. and Tucker, C. (2014). Government Surveillance and Internet Search
\nBehavior, Cambridge, MA: Digital Fourth. [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ssrn
\n.com\/abstract=2412564.
\nMayer-Sch\u00f6nberger, V. and Cukier, K. (2013). Big Data: A revolution that will
\ntransform how we live, work, and think. Reprint edn Boston, MA: Houghton
\nMifflin Harcourt.
\nMcKendrick, N. (1982). The Consumer Revolution of Eighteenth-Century
\nEngland, in N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J.H. Plumb (eds.) The Birth of a
\nConsumer Society: The commercialization of eighteenth-century England,
\nBloomington, IL: Indiana University Press.
\nMenn, J., Sch\u00e5fer, D. and Bradshaw, T. (2010). Google set for probes on data
\nharvesting, Financial Times. 17 May [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/
\ncms\/s\/2\/254ff5b6-61e2-11df-998c-00144feab49a.html#axzz3JjXPNno5
\n(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nMichaels, J.D. (2008). All the President\u2019s Spies: Private-public intelligence partnerships in the war on terror, California Law Review 96(4):
\n901\u2013966.
\nMick, J. (2011). ACLU fights for answers on police phone location data tracking,
\nDaily Tech. 4 August [WWW document] http:\/\/www.dailytech.com\/ACLU
\n+Fights+for+Answers+on+Police+Phone+Location+Data+Tracking\/
\narticle22352.htm (accessed 21 November 2014).
\nM\u00fcnstermann, B., Smolinski, B. and Sprague, K. (2014). The Enterprise IT
\nInfrastructure Agenda for 2014, McKinsey & Company White Paper: 1\u20138.
\nNewman, J. (2009). Google\u2019s Schmidt Roasted for Privacy Comments, PCWorld.
\n11 December [WWW document] http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/184446\/
\ngoogles_schmidt_roasted_for_privacy_comments.html (accessed 21 November
\n2014).
\nNewman, N. (2014). The costs of lost privacy: consumer harm and rising economic
\ninequality in the age of Google, William-Mitchell Law Review 40(2): 12.
\nNicas, J. (2014). JetBlue to add bag fees, reduce legroom, Wall Street Journal.
\n20 November [WWW document] http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/articles\/jetblue-to-addbag-fees-reduce-legroom-1416406199.
\nNissembaum, H. (2011). A Contextual Approach to Privacy Online, Daedalus
\n140(4): 32\u201348.
\nO\u2019Brien, K.J. (2012). European regulators may reopen Google Street View
\ninquiries, The New York Times. 2 May [WWW document] http:\/\/www.nytimes.
\ncom\/2012\/05\/03\/technology\/european-regulators-to-reopen-google-street-viewinquiries.html.
\nO\u2019Brien, K.J. and Crampton, T. (2007). E.U. probes Google over data retention
\npolicy, The New York Times. 26 May [WWW document] http:\/\/www.nytimes.
\ncom\/2007\/05\/26\/business\/26google.html.
\nO\u2019Brien, K.J. and Miller, C.C. (2013). Germany\u2019s complicated relationship with
\nGoogle Street View, Bits Blog. 23 April [WWW document] http:\/\/bits.blogs.
\nnytimes.com\/2013\/04\/23\/germanys-complicated-relationship-with-googlestreet-view\/ (accessed 21 November 2014).
\nOffice of the Privacy Commission of Canada (2010). Google contravened
\nCanadian privacy law, investigation finds, Office of the Privacy Commissioner of
\nCanada. 19 October [WWW document] https:\/\/www.priv.gc.ca\/media\/nr-c\/
\n2010\/nr-c_101019_e.asp (accessed 21 November 2014).
\nOwen, J. (2014). Google in court again over \u2018right to be above British law\u2019 on
\nalleged secret monitoring, The Independent. 8 December.
\nPalfrey, J. (2008). The Public and the Private the United States Border with
\nCyberspace, Mississippi Law Journal 78(2): 241\u2013294.
\nParnell, B.-A. (2014). Is Google building SKYNET? Ad kingpin buys AI firm
\nDeepMind, Register. 27 January [WWW document] http:\/\/www.theregister.co.
\nuk\/2014\/01\/27\/google_deep_mind_buy\/ (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nPentland, A. (2009). Reality mining of mobile communications: Toward a new deal
\non data, in The Global Information Technology Report, World Economic Forum
\n& INSEAD, pp. 75\u201380.
\nPEW Research Center (2014). Digital life in 2015. (Research Report). [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.pewinternet.org\/2014\/03\/11\/digital-life-in-2025\/.
\nPiketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge, MA: Belknap
\nPress of Harvard University Press.
\nPlummer, Q. (2014). Google email tip-off draws privacy concerns, Tech Times.
\n5 August [WWW document] http:\/\/www.techtimes.com\/articles\/12194\/
\n20140805\/google-email-tip-off-draws-privacy-concerns.htm (accessed 21
\nNovember 2014).
\nReidenberg, J.R. (2014). Data surveillance state in the United States and Europe,
\nWake Forest Law Review 48(1): 583.
\nRichards, N.M. (2013). The Dangers of Surveillance, Harvard Law Review
\n126: 1934\u20131965.
\nRichards, N.M. and King, J.H. (2014). Big Data Ethics. (Accepted Paper Series)
\nSaint Louis, MO: Wake Forest Law Review.
\nSchmarzo, B. (2014). The value of data: Google gets It!!, EMC InFocus. 10 June
\n[WWW document] https:\/\/infocus.emc.com\/william_schmarzo\/the-value-ofdata-google-gets-it\/.
\nSchmidt, E. (2014). A chance for growth, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 9 April
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/www.faz.net\/aktuell\/feuilleton\/debatten\/eric-schmidtabout-the-good-things-google-does-a-chance-for-growth-12887909.html.
\nSchwartz, P. (1989). The Computer in German and American Constitutional Law:
\nTowards an American right of informational self-determination, American
\nJournal of Comparative Law 37(4): 675\u2013701.
\nSemitsu, J.P. (2011). From Facebook to Mug Shot: How the dearth of social
\nnetworking privacy rights revolutionized online government surveillance, Pace
\nLaw Review 31(1): 291.
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n88
\nSklar, M.J. (1988). The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism:
\n1890\u20131916: The market, the law, and politics, New York, NY: Cambridge
\nUniversity Press.
\nSmith, A. (1994). The Wealth of Nations. (E. Cannan, ed.), Later Printing edn
\nNew York: Modern Library.
\nSnelling, D. (2014). Google Maps is tracking you! How your smartphone knows
\nyour every move, Express.co.uk. 18 August http:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/life-style\/
\nscience-technology\/500811\/Google-Maps-is-tracking-your-every-move
\n(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nSolove, D.J. (2007). \u2018I\u2019ve Got Nothing to Hide\u2019 and Other Misunderstandings of
\nPrivacy, San Diego Law Review 44: 745.
\nSolove, D.J. (2013). Introduction: Privacy self-management and the consent
\ndilemma, Harvard Law Review 126(7): 1880\u20131904.
\nSteingart, G. (2014). Google debate our weapons in the digital battle for freedom,
\nFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 23 June [WWW document] http:\/\/www.faz.net\/
\naktuell\/feuilleton\/debatten\/the-digital-debate\/google-debatte-waffen-imdigitalen-freiheitskampf-13005653.html.
\nStreitfeld, D. (2013). Google admits Street View project ( help with nursing paper writing from experts with MSN & DNP degrees) violated privacy, New York
\nTimes. 12 March [WWW document] http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/03\/13\/
\ntechnology\/google-pays-fine-over-street-view-privacy-breach.html.
\nTrotman, A. (2014). Google boss Larry Page: Europe needs to be more like
\nSilicon Valley and support technology, Telegraph. 31 October [WWW
\ndocument] http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/technology\/google\/11202850\/Google-bossLarry-Page-Europe-needs-to-be-more-like-Silicon-Valley-and-support-technology
\n.html.
\nUnger, R.M. (2007). Free Trade Reimagined: The world division of labor and the
\nmethod of economics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
\nU.S. Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (2013). A review of
\nthe data broker industry: collection, use and sale of consumer data for marketing
\npurposes, Office of Oversight and Investigations. [WWW document] http:\/\/
\nwww.commerce.senate.gov\/public\/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=0d2b3642-6221-
\n4888-a631-08f2f255b577.
\nVaidhyanathan, Siva. (2011). The Googilization of Everything, Berkeley, CA:
\nUniversity of California Press.
\nVarian, H.R. (2010). Computer Mediated Transactions, American Economic
\nReview 100(2): 1\u201310.
\nVarian, H.R. (2014). Beyond Big Data, Business Economics 49(1): 27\u201331.
\nVasagar, J. (2014). Google could face \u2018cyber courts\u2019 in Germany over privacy rights,
\nFinancial Times. 27 May [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/
\na7580826-e59d-11e3-8b90-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3JjXPNno5 (accessed 21
\nNovember 21 2014).
\nWallbank, P. (2012). How much server space do Internet companies need to run
\ntheir sites? Decoding the New Economy. 23 August [WWW document] http:\/\/
\npaulwallbank.com\/2012\/08\/23\/how-much-server-space-do-internet-companiesneed-to-run-their-sites\/ (accessed 22 November 2014).
\nWaters, R. (2014). FT interview with Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page \u2013 FT.
\ncom, Financial Times. 31 October [WWW document] http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/
\ncms\/s\/2\/3173f19e-5fbc-11e4-8c27-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3JjXPNno5
\n(accessed 21 November 2014).
\nWeatherill, L. (1993). The Meaning of Consumer Behavior in the Seventeenth and
\nEarly Eighteenth-Century England, in J. Brewer and R. Porter (eds.)
\nConsumption and the World of Goods, London, UK: Routledge.
\nWeber, M. (1978). Economy and Society: An outline of interpretive sociology.
\nVol. 1 Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
\nWeiser, M. (1991). The Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American 265(3):
\n94\u2013104.
\nWhite House (2014). Big Data: seizing opportunities, preserving values (Report for
\nthe President), Washington D.C., USA: Executive Office of the President.
\n[WWW document] http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/docs\/
\nbig_data_privacy_report_may_1_2014.pdf.
\nWilliamson, O.E. (1985). The Economic Institutions of Capitalism, New York;
\nLondon: Free Press.
\nWinkler, R. and Wakabayashi, D. (2014). Google to buy nest labs for $3.2 billion \u2013
\nupdate, EuroInvestor. 14 January [WWW document] http:\/\/www.euroinvestor.
\ncom\/news\/2014\/01\/14\/google-to-buy-nest-labs-for-32-billion-update\/12658007
\n(accessed 22 November 2014).
\nZiegler, C. (2012). Facebook IPO facts and figures: the house that 100 petabytes
\nbuilt, Verge. 1 February [WWW document] http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2012\/2\/1\/
\n2764905\/facebook-ipo-facts-and-figures-the-house-that-100-petabytes-built
\n(accessed 22 November 2014).
\nZittrain, J. (2014). Facebook could decide an election without anyone ever finding
\nout, New Republic. 1 June [WWW document] http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/
\narticle\/117878\/information-fiduciary-solution-facebook-digitalgerrymandering.
\nZuboff, S. (1981). Psychological and Organizational Implications of ComputerMediated Work, MIT Working Paper, Center for Information Systems Research.
\nZuboff, S. (1982). New Worlds of Computer-Mediated Work, Harvard Business
\nReview 60(5): 142\u2013152.
\nZuboff, S. (1985). Automate\/Informate: The two faces of intelligent technology,
\nOrganizational Dynamics 14(2): 5\u201318.
\nZuboff, S. (1988). In the Age of the Smart Machine: The future of work and power,
\nNew York, NY: Basic Books.
\nZuboff, S. (2013). Computer-Mediated Work, In Sociology of Work: An
\nEncyclopedia, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. [WWW document]
\nhttp:\/\/knowledge.sagepub.com\/view\/sociology-of-work\/n41.xml.
\nZuboff, S. and Maxmin, J. (2002). The Support Economy: Why corporations are
\nfailing individuals and the next episode of capitalism, New York, NY: Viking
\nPenguin.
\nAbout the author
\nShoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of
\nBusiness Administration (Emerita) and a Faculty Associate
\nat the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard
\nLaw School. She is currently completing a new book, Master
\nor Slave? The Fight for the Soul of Our Information Civilization (forthcoming, Public Affairs and Eichborn 2016). She is
\nalso the author of In the Age of the Smart Machine: The
\nfuture of work and power and The Support Economy: Why
\ncorporations are failing individuals and the next episode of
\ncapitalism.
\nBig other S Zuboff
\n89<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Electronic copy available at: http:\/\/ssrn.com\/abstract=2594754 Research article Big other: surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information civilization Shoshana Zuboff1,2 1 Harvard Business School Emerita,\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7316,7318,7317,7315,7319,7321],"tags":[642,618,8825,576,116,631,19,643,473,633,630,628,450,597,594,626,635,574,622,624,620,621,619,623,617,625,627,634,629,632,644,645,42,66],"class_list":["post-113253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-dissertation-writers-uk","category-british-dissertation-writers","category-dissertation-help-online","category-dissertation-writing-services-uk","category-help-with-dissertation-writing","category-uk-dissertation-help","tag-apps-that-write-essays-for-you-free","tag-assignment-writing-services-in-usa","tag-bes","tag-best-dissertation-writing-services","tag-best-essay-writing-service","tag-best-paper-writing-services","tag-best-research-paper-writing-services-in-usa","tag-best-website-to-write-my-essay","tag-cheap-essay-writing-service","tag-cheap-research-paper-writing-service","tag-college-paper-writing-service","tag-dissertation-help-online","tag-dissertation-writing-services","tag-dissertation-writing-services-illegal","tag-dissertation-writing-services-near-me","tag-dissertation-writing-services-usa","tag-essay-writing-service","tag-free-dissertation-writing-services","tag-homework-essay-writer","tag-homework-essay-writer-free","tag-homework-help-global","tag-homework-help-services","tag-homework-help-usa","tag-homework-writing-help","tag-homework-writing-service","tag-legit-research-paper-writing-services","tag-legitimate-dissertation-writing-services","tag-research-paper-writer-online-free","tag-research-paper-writing-services-online","tag-research-paper-writing-websites","tag-write-my-essay-for-me-cheap","tag-write-my-essay-for-me-tik-tok","tag-write-my-essay-free","tag-write-my-paper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.studyproessays.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}