Tech - Surveillance Capitalism

In its infancy the Internet was mostly used for research, academic purposes and the democratization of knowledge. The shift towards commercialization happened when private businesses started to take an interest in this space; first to other businesses then to the general public thanks to the increase prevalence of personal computers and relative ease of access to the web with the advent of the first popular web browser Netscape and internet service provider like America Online (AOL).

The second part of the 90's saw a rise in the number of internet companies with investors pouring money into them hoping for massive return. An optimism boosted by the entry of Netscape to the stock exchange in 1995. Most of these companies where however over-evaluated lacking a sustainable business model and real world value. This frenzy continued until 2000 at which point optimism turned to disillusion. The bubble burst with many companies going defunct.

Surviving companies and newly created ones faced with a loss of confidence in their long term viability had to find new ways to justify their valuation. Data collected as a byproduct of service usage first viewed with low interest suddenly became much more valuable with the rapid digitalization of the world.

Under the guise of service improvements, progress and innovation they built a new world were data colonialism became the backbone of their business model. A model refined, perfected through the years and perpetuated to this day. A model so lucrative that others industries have replicated it.

They extract data from users at every occasion; during product use, as embedded third party in others services, by aggregating public information and buying private ones.

Users are being robbed mercilessly of their most private information, personal data about their identity, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, cultural background, political & religious beliefs, social circles, health & financial data, digital activities, location, movements and so forth with nonexistent data being inferred.

Users may think the trade-off for service access is a fair one. But fail to realize that data collection goes much further than the ones explicitly asked. One isolated data point may seem harmless but aggregated from different sources and compiled over time on individuals and population alike, extremely detailed profiles emerge.

Collection is only the first step of a well-oiled pipeline which then analyze data to make predictions, behaviour analysis then used to target and control people.

Any player with power and money is making use of the intelligence gathered to strangle our freedoms.

Data brokers as middleman and thieves deal and trade stolen data to anyone willing to pay for it.

Companies looking to maximize their sales and profit margin crawl into people's minds to find or sway their purchase inclinations. Constantly engaging in perpetual biding wars with each others and gouging out the eyes of users by the incessant and non-consensual exhibition of adverts.

Financial, insurance companies and health providers pray on the needy to deny or raise the cost of their services.

Politicians and their campaigns track public opinion and instead of proposing policies valuable to society engage in distortion of facts and emotion manipulation playing on the fear of the voters.

The police as the violent arm of the state use their power to target minorities or any group viewed unfavourably by the state.

Surveillance capitalism is an existential threat to our democratic societies. The power and wealth of theses companies led them to believe in their right to challenge the authority of the state. When that said state is not simultaneously benefiting from the vast apparatus provided by surveillance capitalism used as a supplement to their own pervasive mass surveillance networks.