11 ms·

‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ Review

92 points by Jerry2 8y ago

drallison 8y ago
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is going to be a seminal book. I am looking forward to receiving my personal copy tomorrow (release is January 15).
- PinkMilkshake 8y ago
  What is the significance of this book? I'm not familiar with the author.
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    This entire HN post is a share of a review of the book by Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Published 01.15.2019
- rataata_jr 8y ago
  Sure.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
mises 8y ago
I've commented on their before, but my concern is more with the government having my data than companies. I hate both, but government is worse. Case study China. Please. I don't care if it's left, right, or center. Next election, support someone who won't turn America into a technologically-enabled police state.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  There is a good chance that government and companies will be the same at some point. We should be concerned about any kind of entity having these surveillance powers.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - 0x8BADF00D 8y ago
    > There is a good chance that government and companies will be the same at some point. Naval Ravikant had a good tweet about this: The distant future is small free cities with drone armies and skill-based immigration policies, surrounded by a sea of failed socialist states.[1] Guess which kinds of states have massive surveillance powers? Socialist ones. By definition you need to surveil your entire population in order to keep track of who gets what payment/government dole. How else would you keep track of it? [1]https://twitter.com/naval/status/1084724006626840576?s=21 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1084724006626840576?s=21
    - renholder 8y ago
      > Guess which kinds of states have massive surveillance powers? The United States? Last that I checked, it wasn't the socialist states trying to surveil everyone in the known world, with their own citizens chirping, "You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide."
      - notacoward 8y ago
        Correct. Government surveillance is associated with authoritarianism. The axis between that and democracy is orthogonal to the one between left/communist and right/capitalist. Of the three largest economies, it's the most democratic one that has passed privacy-preserving laws like GDPR while the other two pass surveillance-enabling ones depite being at opposite ends of the left/right spectrum.
        0x8BADF00D 8y ago
        Countries in the EU are the most heavily surveilled in the world. Not sure what your point is. GDPR has nothing to do with to government surveillance, it just regulates commerce between private entities that exchange data on the Internet.
- devoply 8y ago
  Usually candidates that don't support the status quo are labelled loony bin candidates. US is and probably always has been to the extent allowed by tech a technologically-enabled police state. It's just that it usually leaves most of its citizens alone often enough that they can pretend that this is not the case. I mean just see the levels of common harassment by the police while attempting to travel whether on the road or any other mode. It's common, it's routine, and it's banal. It's not the same type of police state as other police states like China or Russia, but it's a type of police state that relies on soft power backed by hard power only when necessary. It's a very sophisticated police state while others are crude police states.
- segfaultbuserr 8y ago
  > I hate both, but government is worse. And governments have the power to order companies to share their data, e.g. CLOUD Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act), so all personal data collectied by corporations automatically becomes data owned by the governments.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > And governments have the power to order companies to share their data, e.g. CLOUD Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act), so all personal data collectied by corporations automatically becomes data owned by the governments. Not exactly, the CLOUD Act is an amendment to the Stored Communications Act which removes the stipulation that the data requested in a subpoena or warranted search under the SCA be located in the U.S. The SCA does not authorize mass collection, unless companies are too lazy to limit disclosures to communications content related to the specific person under investigation.
- clouddrover 8y ago
  > my concern is more with the government having my data than companies If the data exists then companies and governments alike will exploit it regardless of who collected it. Your internet usage, your phone records, even your DNA profile if you used a DNA profiling service can all be accessed at will without your knowledge or consent: https://www.purevpn.com/blog/data-retention-laws-by-countries/ https://www.purevpn.com/blog/data-retention-laws-by-countrie... In an age when your own data can be weaponized against your best interests I think the only sensible strategy is to minimize your data footprint as much as possible. Do not join "loyalty" programs, do not sign up to surveillance platforms like Facebook, do not submit your DNA to DNA databases, pay in cash whenever possible, etc. You will inevitably be undermined by other people forking over your data to surveillance platforms but you can only do the best you can and hope to persuade as many people as possible to do similarly.
  - est31 8y ago
    > Do not join "loyalty" programs, do not sign up to surveillance platforms like Facebook, do not submit your DNA to DNA databases, pay in cash whenever possible, etc. I'm doing most of that already but even if you do all of these things, there's still the "friends" problem. The friends who use one of those apps that upload all of their contacts to the central server. The friends who use facebook. The family members who submit DNA to DNA databases. Very likely your friends are similar to you, so they serve as good predictors for your own data. As is for your family members, they usually have very similar DNA to yours :). E.g. if your friends all live in one certain city, then you likely are to live there as well. If you have a suspiciously high amount of medical doctors in your friend circle, you are most likely one yourself. If 50% of your contacts are LGBT community members, you are likely to be one, too. The data hoarders of this world don't need you to submit your data yourself in order to have your data.
    - gregknicholson 8y ago
      > The data hoarders of this world don't need you to submit your data yourself in order to have your data. It's the vaccination problem (not that one) — if enough people get vaccinated you can prevent a flu outbreak; if they don't, vaccinating yourself will only have limited effectiveness.
- kanox 8y ago
  Companies that collect your data will sell it, or sell services based on that data. Governments can act like just another customer.
neonate 8y ago
https://outline.com/6cVy9a https://outline.com/6cVy9a
Proven 8y ago
There’s no surveillance capitalism. In capitalism you have property rights. That being so, your private information can be protected and hence “capitalized” upon (pun intended) by the owner because in free market you would be able to sell it (should you want to do that) at a price that makes you willing to share your info. So what we have is rather fascism, or extreme statism. And it’s more prevalent in countries where the government controls more GDP (so, socialist-like countries).
- prolikewhoa 8y ago
  socialism != fascism they're completely opposite on the spectrum. socialism is people's democratic ownership of property and government.
  - visarga 8y ago
    Going into semantics! Has there even been a 'true socialism' by your definition?
    - AngryData 8y ago
      Would you be saying the same thing if someone said North Korea was democratic and then dismiss any arguments that it isn't democratic as 'semantics'? Simplistic generalizations on complex, broad, and especially controversial topics pretty much always results in ignorance based conclusions.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    Socialism is the unconditional surrender of all property (including the person) to the state, through whatever legal fiction provides for that. The "demos" in your "democratic ownership" is "The People", not the people. And frankly, if you ever try to impose that on me, I will treat it just as any other form of assault (as will many with me across North America).
    - prolikewhoa 8y ago
      Socialism does not argue for taking your personal property, only property that is used for making profit which will then be taken by the working class to earn their full labor value instead of having a boss steal the surplus value. A lot feel the same way about the system you impose on them.
walterbell 8y ago
Earlier work by Shoshana Zuboff, on corporations who see humans as a source of data, not even as customers. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshana-zuboff-secrets-of-surveillance-capitalism-14103616.html?printPagedArticle=true https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-... (2016) & https://vimeo.com/110222526 https://vimeo.com/110222526 (2014) > While advertisers have been the dominant buyers in the early history of this new kind of marketplace, there is no substantive reason why such markets should be limited to this group. The already visible trend is that any actor with an interest in monetizing probabilistic information about our behavior and/or influencing future behavior can pay to play in a marketplace where the behavioral fortunes of individuals, groups, bodies, and things are told and sold. This is how in our own lifetimes we observe capitalism shifting under our gaze: once profits from products and services, then profits from speculation, and now profits from surveillance. > The bare facts of surveillance capitalism necessarily arouse my indignation because they demean human dignity. The future of this narrative will depend upon the indignant scholars and journalists drawn to this frontier project, indignant elected officials and policy makers who understand that their authority originates in the foundational values of democratic communities, and indignant citizens who act in the knowledge that effectiveness without autonomy is not effective, dependency-induced compliance is no social contract, and freedom from uncertainty is no freedom.
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  > ...influencing future behavior... This is insightful (to me at least) — the next step after surveillance capitalism is coercion capitalism. I think the “nothing to hide / nothing to fear” people won't like being coerced. (Also, by their logic, GAFAM should be unafraid of publishing their algorithms — right?)
  - sitkack 8y ago
    Is that rewards programs, coupons, black friday deals, amazon prime and rebates? I buy something a thrift books and Chase sends me a coupon for abe books. Who knows how much data Chase is selling to whom?
tmp092 8y ago
I feel like scraping my bank transaction data to be the most violating breach of my privacy (more so than my likes), and yet companies like Plaid are thriving because people are willing to give up access to years of bank transaction history to use apps like Robinhood.
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  For this reason I have been experimenting with going cash only. Its actually not so bad and I can easily give money to those in need on the street.
  - DoubleGlazing 8y ago
    I generally use cash for everything. The exceptions being large purchases or where I need a secondary proof of purchase. I was once asked by my bank why I wasn't taking advantage of of the convenience my contactless debit card offered. I said because I didn't want them knowing what I spent my money on. This led on to me being advised that I would struggle to get loan or mortgage facilities because the bank would be unable to see if I was spending my money responsibly. I can live with that.
abhinav_1941 8y ago
Capitalism on a roll!
cinquemb 8y ago
Technical solutions at scale to combat this is to poison the well with the aim for actors to spend more and more of their resources on separating signal from noise.
iamkroot 8y ago
I understand the discomfort that comes with having vast corporate entities in possession of private personal information but as a user I'm somewhat confused about not exactly it affects my day to day life, especially since I insist on using adblock on every Internet connected device. Perhap this book will reveal to me some dangers that I am not currently aware of. I'll try to keep an eye out for it and read it if it can.
- i_feel_great 8y ago
  I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends only. I have never posted a photo of myself on Facebook. I have adblock and noscript running. I use an alias and not my real name. But Facebook suggested I tagged some faces on some photos my family shared. They were all of me. Not my brothers or other people also in the photos. But me. Of course there is a lot of context shared by family and friends, but how Facebook could get the right faces baffles me. How does it affect my daily life? I don't know yet.
- arkh 8y ago
  Let's say you want to change things one day in your country: you get into politics or unionize. Too bad, your opponent has a back-channel access to data about you which could be used against you if made public. Or some law is passed and suddenly some of your old activity is made illegal: you're now on a watchlist, let's hope you can stop your cinnamon addiction. Let's be more day-to-day: all your data is sold to insurance companies. Where you go, how fast you go, what kind of food you eat, your gym attendance etc.
  - matz1 8y ago
    >Let's say you want to change things one day in your country: you get into politics or unionize Not day to day situation >Or some law is passed and suddenly some of your old activity is made illegal Then the law need to be changed so that past activity that is now illegal shouldn't affect you. >all your data is sold to insurance companies Ok so what's the danger? If anything I could get maybe cheaper insurance.
  - iamkroot 8y ago
DoubleGlazing 8y ago
The depressing thing about all this is that it is getting harder to opt-out of being surveiled. Even if you ditch your phone and computers, there are still way to track you. Just look at some of the crazy stuff happening in retail where facial recognition is used in some stores and malls to track where you go and what you look at in order to manipulate you in to buying more. It may be niche right now, but as the tech develops and gets cheaper it's use will become more widespread.

92 points by Jerry2 8y ago

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is going to be a seminal book. I am looking forward to receiving my personal copy tomorrow (release is January 15).

PinkMilkshake 8y ago
What is the significance of this book? I'm not familiar with the author.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  This entire HN post is a share of a review of the book by Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Published 01.15.2019
rataata_jr 8y ago
Sure.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

mises 8y ago

I've commented on their before, but my concern is more with the government having my data than companies. I hate both, but government is worse. Case study China. Please. I don't care if it's left, right, or center. Next election, support someone who won't turn America into a technologically-enabled police state.

maxxxxx 8y ago
There is a good chance that government and companies will be the same at some point. We should be concerned about any kind of entity having these surveillance powers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- 0x8BADF00D 8y ago
  > There is a good chance that government and companies will be the same at some point. Naval Ravikant had a good tweet about this: The distant future is small free cities with drone armies and skill-based immigration policies, surrounded by a sea of failed socialist states.[1] Guess which kinds of states have massive surveillance powers? Socialist ones. By definition you need to surveil your entire population in order to keep track of who gets what payment/government dole. How else would you keep track of it? [1]https://twitter.com/naval/status/1084724006626840576?s=21 https://twitter.com/naval/status/1084724006626840576?s=21
  - renholder 8y ago
    > Guess which kinds of states have massive surveillance powers? The United States? Last that I checked, it wasn't the socialist states trying to surveil everyone in the known world, with their own citizens chirping, "You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide."
    - notacoward 8y ago
      Correct. Government surveillance is associated with authoritarianism. The axis between that and democracy is orthogonal to the one between left/communist and right/capitalist. Of the three largest economies, it's the most democratic one that has passed privacy-preserving laws like GDPR while the other two pass surveillance-enabling ones depite being at opposite ends of the left/right spectrum.
      - 0x8BADF00D 8y ago
        Countries in the EU are the most heavily surveilled in the world. Not sure what your point is. GDPR has nothing to do with to government surveillance, it just regulates commerce between private entities that exchange data on the Internet.
devoply 8y ago
Usually candidates that don't support the status quo are labelled loony bin candidates. US is and probably always has been to the extent allowed by tech a technologically-enabled police state. It's just that it usually leaves most of its citizens alone often enough that they can pretend that this is not the case. I mean just see the levels of common harassment by the police while attempting to travel whether on the road or any other mode. It's common, it's routine, and it's banal. It's not the same type of police state as other police states like China or Russia, but it's a type of police state that relies on soft power backed by hard power only when necessary. It's a very sophisticated police state while others are crude police states.
segfaultbuserr 8y ago
> I hate both, but government is worse. And governments have the power to order companies to share their data, e.g. CLOUD Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act), so all personal data collectied by corporations automatically becomes data owned by the governments.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > And governments have the power to order companies to share their data, e.g. CLOUD Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act), so all personal data collectied by corporations automatically becomes data owned by the governments. Not exactly, the CLOUD Act is an amendment to the Stored Communications Act which removes the stipulation that the data requested in a subpoena or warranted search under the SCA be located in the U.S. The SCA does not authorize mass collection, unless companies are too lazy to limit disclosures to communications content related to the specific person under investigation.
clouddrover 8y ago
> my concern is more with the government having my data than companies If the data exists then companies and governments alike will exploit it regardless of who collected it. Your internet usage, your phone records, even your DNA profile if you used a DNA profiling service can all be accessed at will without your knowledge or consent: https://www.purevpn.com/blog/data-retention-laws-by-countries/ https://www.purevpn.com/blog/data-retention-laws-by-countrie... In an age when your own data can be weaponized against your best interests I think the only sensible strategy is to minimize your data footprint as much as possible. Do not join "loyalty" programs, do not sign up to surveillance platforms like Facebook, do not submit your DNA to DNA databases, pay in cash whenever possible, etc. You will inevitably be undermined by other people forking over your data to surveillance platforms but you can only do the best you can and hope to persuade as many people as possible to do similarly.
- est31 8y ago
  > Do not join "loyalty" programs, do not sign up to surveillance platforms like Facebook, do not submit your DNA to DNA databases, pay in cash whenever possible, etc. I'm doing most of that already but even if you do all of these things, there's still the "friends" problem. The friends who use one of those apps that upload all of their contacts to the central server. The friends who use facebook. The family members who submit DNA to DNA databases. Very likely your friends are similar to you, so they serve as good predictors for your own data. As is for your family members, they usually have very similar DNA to yours :). E.g. if your friends all live in one certain city, then you likely are to live there as well. If you have a suspiciously high amount of medical doctors in your friend circle, you are most likely one yourself. If 50% of your contacts are LGBT community members, you are likely to be one, too. The data hoarders of this world don't need you to submit your data yourself in order to have your data.
  - gregknicholson 8y ago
    > The data hoarders of this world don't need you to submit your data yourself in order to have your data. It's the vaccination problem (not that one) — if enough people get vaccinated you can prevent a flu outbreak; if they don't, vaccinating yourself will only have limited effectiveness.
kanox 8y ago
Companies that collect your data will sell it, or sell services based on that data. Governments can act like just another customer.

neonate 8y ago

https://outline.com/6cVy9a https://outline.com/6cVy9a

Proven 8y ago

There’s no surveillance capitalism. In capitalism you have property rights. That being so, your private information can be protected and hence “capitalized” upon (pun intended) by the owner because in free market you would be able to sell it (should you want to do that) at a price that makes you willing to share your info. So what we have is rather fascism, or extreme statism. And it’s more prevalent in countries where the government controls more GDP (so, socialist-like countries).

prolikewhoa 8y ago
socialism != fascism they're completely opposite on the spectrum. socialism is people's democratic ownership of property and government.
- visarga 8y ago
  Going into semantics! Has there even been a 'true socialism' by your definition?
  - AngryData 8y ago
    Would you be saying the same thing if someone said North Korea was democratic and then dismiss any arguments that it isn't democratic as 'semantics'? Simplistic generalizations on complex, broad, and especially controversial topics pretty much always results in ignorance based conclusions.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Socialism is the unconditional surrender of all property (including the person) to the state, through whatever legal fiction provides for that. The "demos" in your "democratic ownership" is "The People", not the people. And frankly, if you ever try to impose that on me, I will treat it just as any other form of assault (as will many with me across North America).
  - prolikewhoa 8y ago
    Socialism does not argue for taking your personal property, only property that is used for making profit which will then be taken by the working class to earn their full labor value instead of having a boss steal the surplus value. A lot feel the same way about the system you impose on them.

walterbell 8y ago

Earlier work by Shoshana Zuboff, on corporations who see humans as a source of data, not even as customers. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshana-zuboff-secrets-of-surveillance-capitalism-14103616.html?printPagedArticle=true https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-... (2016) & https://vimeo.com/110222526 https://vimeo.com/110222526 (2014) > While advertisers have been the dominant buyers in the early history of this new kind of marketplace, there is no substantive reason why such markets should be limited to this group. The already visible trend is that any actor with an interest in monetizing probabilistic information about our behavior and/or influencing future behavior can pay to play in a marketplace where the behavioral fortunes of individuals, groups, bodies, and things are told and sold. This is how in our own lifetimes we observe capitalism shifting under our gaze: once profits from products and services, then profits from speculation, and now profits from surveillance. > The bare facts of surveillance capitalism necessarily arouse my indignation because they demean human dignity. The future of this narrative will depend upon the indignant scholars and journalists drawn to this frontier project, indignant elected officials and policy makers who understand that their authority originates in the foundational values of democratic communities, and indignant citizens who act in the knowledge that effectiveness without autonomy is not effective, dependency-induced compliance is no social contract, and freedom from uncertainty is no freedom.

gregknicholson 8y ago
> ...influencing future behavior... This is insightful (to me at least) — the next step after surveillance capitalism is coercion capitalism. I think the “nothing to hide / nothing to fear” people won't like being coerced. (Also, by their logic, GAFAM should be unafraid of publishing their algorithms — right?)
- sitkack 8y ago
  Is that rewards programs, coupons, black friday deals, amazon prime and rebates? I buy something a thrift books and Chase sends me a coupon for abe books. Who knows how much data Chase is selling to whom?

tmp092 8y ago

I feel like scraping my bank transaction data to be the most violating breach of my privacy (more so than my likes), and yet companies like Plaid are thriving because people are willing to give up access to years of bank transaction history to use apps like Robinhood.

ndnxhs 8y ago
For this reason I have been experimenting with going cash only. Its actually not so bad and I can easily give money to those in need on the street.
- DoubleGlazing 8y ago
  I generally use cash for everything. The exceptions being large purchases or where I need a secondary proof of purchase. I was once asked by my bank why I wasn't taking advantage of of the convenience my contactless debit card offered. I said because I didn't want them knowing what I spent my money on. This led on to me being advised that I would struggle to get loan or mortgage facilities because the bank would be unable to see if I was spending my money responsibly. I can live with that.

abhinav_1941 8y ago

Capitalism on a roll!

cinquemb 8y ago

Technical solutions at scale to combat this is to poison the well with the aim for actors to spend more and more of their resources on separating signal from noise.

iamkroot 8y ago

I understand the discomfort that comes with having vast corporate entities in possession of private personal information but as a user I'm somewhat confused about not exactly it affects my day to day life, especially since I insist on using adblock on every Internet connected device. Perhap this book will reveal to me some dangers that I am not currently aware of. I'll try to keep an eye out for it and read it if it can.

i_feel_great 8y ago
I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends only. I have never posted a photo of myself on Facebook. I have adblock and noscript running. I use an alias and not my real name. But Facebook suggested I tagged some faces on some photos my family shared. They were all of me. Not my brothers or other people also in the photos. But me. Of course there is a lot of context shared by family and friends, but how Facebook could get the right faces baffles me. How does it affect my daily life? I don't know yet.
arkh 8y ago
Let's say you want to change things one day in your country: you get into politics or unionize. Too bad, your opponent has a back-channel access to data about you which could be used against you if made public. Or some law is passed and suddenly some of your old activity is made illegal: you're now on a watchlist, let's hope you can stop your cinnamon addiction. Let's be more day-to-day: all your data is sold to insurance companies. Where you go, how fast you go, what kind of food you eat, your gym attendance etc.
- matz1 8y ago
  >Let's say you want to change things one day in your country: you get into politics or unionize Not day to day situation >Or some law is passed and suddenly some of your old activity is made illegal Then the law need to be changed so that past activity that is now illegal shouldn't affect you. >all your data is sold to insurance companies Ok so what's the danger? If anything I could get maybe cheaper insurance.
- iamkroot 8y ago

DoubleGlazing 8y ago

The depressing thing about all this is that it is getting harder to opt-out of being surveiled. Even if you ditch your phone and computers, there are still way to track you. Just look at some of the crazy stuff happening in retail where facial recognition is used in some stores and malls to track where you go and what you look at in order to manipulate you in to buying more. It may be niche right now, but as the tech develops and gets cheaper it's use will become more widespread.