For them, the humans attached to that data are just accessories.

The surveillance capitalists found an untapped reservoir of information that their services were collecting for internal analytics and programming, and they saw an opportunity: they could sell that ‘data exhaust’ to advertisers. Unlike industrial capitalism, which profits from exploiting natural resources and labour, surveillance capitalism profits from the capture, rendering and analysis of behavioural data through ‘instrumentarian’ methods that are designed to cultivate ‘radical indifference a form of observation without witness’ (379). Pressured by ravenous venture capitalists, start-up founders like Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page created surveillance capitalism instead. All these factors, Zuboff argues, steered us away from both an egalitarian information workplace and the libertarian dream of a cyberspace frontier. To start, Zuboff walks us through the recent history of US tech companies-the dotcom bust that traumatised the industry the success of Apple and its electronics sold on the conceit of consumer choice and the surveillance-favourable environment created by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA’s investments in the ‘war on terror’. Ultimately, I was disappointed by her approach, but she has drawn on such a complicated framework that I should explain it first before I say more.

Zuboff, a professor emerita from Harvard Business School known for her research on information technology in the workplace, set a monumental task for herself-to develop a constellation of vocabulary that encircles the boundless hype of modern technology companies. 2019.Įarly this year, Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism arrived to herald the new form of economic oppression we have watched creep into our lives. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. While the book presents a decent history of the rise of surveillance capitalism, Sam DiBella fears that its approach will inspire paralysis rather than praxis when it comes to forging collective action to counter systematic corporate surveillance. In The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Shoshana Zuboff offers a comprehensive account of the new form of economic oppression that has crept into our lives, challenging the boundless hype that has often surrounded the activities of modern technology companies.

The age of surveillance capitalism book