
Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism - smacktoward
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-digital-debate/shoshana-zuboff-secrets-of-surveillance-capitalism-14103616.html?printPagedArticle=true
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driverdan
> Governmental control is nothing compared to what Google is up to.

Governments have guns, Google does not. I'm not saying we should ignore
corporate surveillance but there is a big difference.

~~~
teekert
Also, Google is opt-in (to a degree, perhaps using Tor/blockers/anti-tracker
should be called opt-out), The government presents not options.

~~~
actuallyNo
This "opt-in" bullshit needs to take a dirt nap.

Claims like: you asked for it, it's your own fault, and on and on.

You know you're full of shit.

You're part of that same group of people who say: America, love it or leave
it. You have the option to speak English or get the fuck out.

It's like hearing someone tell me that I can vote nuclear weapons out of
existence. Like I can solve all my problems with my own little boycott! Oh
really?

I've opted into mandatory JavaScript support, and opaque, minified JS which is
required for so many sites to even work (cross-origin policies aside), and I
can stop server-side exchanges of behavioral data, and I can just walk away
from everything happening around me, and live in a cave, and I can opt into
being a luddite instead?

I suppose I opted into the planes that fly overhead too. My omission of any
actions against air traffic represent my token assent to having tons of
aluminum circling overhead 24 hours a day. Right?

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throwaway2048
Silicon Valley engineers need to seriously ask themselves if its OK to be
enabling a future like this.

~~~
sadgit
They're surrounded by confirmation that it is. Plus way too focused on the
details.

~~~
pdkl95
I wonder how much the "open plan" style of office conditions people to accept
surveillance.

~~~
p4wnc6
Surveillance is the primary reason for its use. It's the only way
organizations would tolerate the cost-ineffectiveness of that working style.

Whether people can be conditioned for it is an interesting question. Naive
young extroverts probably don't have much problem with it. Introverts of all
stripes probably cannot be conditioned as easily since introverts are depleted
of energy by social interaction.

One of my worst fears about our industry is that it will quickly become 100%
open plan surveillance offices and 100% adoption of idiot time wasting
Agile/Scrum/Kanban management process (which are yet another form of cost-
ineffective surveillance).

Before he took down his blog, Michael O. Church had a great post warning about
the "macho subordination" cultures that build up in these Panopticon-like work
spaces. Young workers who don't know that the company is harming them via the
surveillance culture will instead adopt a race to the bottom attitude in which
people compete to be seen as most loyal by showing how much privacy and human
dignity they are vocally willing to give up.

The state of physical working conditions in Silicon Valley is beyond
deplorable, and the trend is quickly being copied even by large firms. And
don't even think for a second that it's about money. Firms pay out the nose
for idiotic, opulent showpiece offices, where rows of sweatshop-like
engineering stations are just office eye candy, not means of production. When
they are paying for fucking fountains, roof gardens, employee cafés, and on-
site rock-climbing walls, you know the argument is not that open-plan saves
money. They are just getting off on how much employees are happy to debase
themselves to get foosball access or craft beer.

It tells me a lot about the integrity of Y Combinator when I see how many YC
companies have deplorable surveillance and macho subordination work spaces,
but that Paul Graham himself gained much notoriety for writing essays, like
his pieces "Great Hackers" or "Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule," which
profoundly influenced me as a young programmer, that talk at length about the
cost-effectiveness of providing people with protected, private, quiet space
and time to get things done.

Modern YC companies, when contrasted against what Graham describes for almost
a decade as good places to work, are a total farce (and the rest of the start-
up world follows suit).

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Animats
Perhaps surveillance capitalism is zero-sum. There's only so much buying
power, and at least in the US, consumers are mostly spent out. In that
situation, advertising just moves demand around; it does not increase it. So
all this consumer data-mining and targeting may be a net lose, just a cost
imposed by the market on all the companies using it.

~~~
benevol
> consumer data-mining and targeting may be a net lose

It _is_ at net lose.

And our current society's concept of ever-increasing growth, based on ever-
increasing consumption (aka "the latest iPhone is out, you must buy that
now"), is very obviously not sustainable any longer. It was sustainable during
the period when our resources seemed "unlimited" to us.

It is however _not_ a lose to Google & Co. who continually gain power over
governments all over the World.

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geomark
Interesting read. But the repeated notion that surveillance capitalists are
only taking from the people by selling off the behavioral surplus omits that
fact they they are providing services that those people want. Yes, appearing
to be free is a subterfuge for many who don't understanding what they are
giving away. But for many others they feel it is a fair exchange for services
they really want.

~~~
kaybe
The article is going much farther than just targeted advertising - it talks
about predicting and manipulating behaviour in general, and about power, power
in the political and personal, such as the question of who we are and our
values.

In combination with the article I read just before, the one about statehood in
no-man's land, there is also the question of sovereignty raised. If our
behavior can be predicted and manipulated by supranational companies, how much
is a democracy - a state - still worth? (Note that state actors could of
course do the same, though hopefully there is at least a semblance of
legitimization.)

This is a very high price to pay, in this described world, and I don't think
most are able to even start judging fairness here, or even care enough to try
and see.

~~~
vixen99
I must admit I have no idea what you're talking about. If people behave in a
predictable way then that's what they do though they are free to change, one
trusts. Where is the evidence for manipulation (aside from that exhibited by
all entrepreneurs from the market stall holder upwards) and to what end?
Google exists by selling advertising on behalf of disparate traders; customers
will therefore make choices which will change according to prevailing
circumstances. Meanwhile billions of people make largely un-tracked purchases
ex internet. Others are tracked and so what? Amazon and ABE Books know my
tastes in literature and are welcome to push suggestions my way. If there are
enough of us (like me), perhaps they'll conspire with a publisher to create a
literary treasure replete with right of center (UK-style) politics, small
state, free market, low tax ideas of the kind I favor. Of course I'll have no
option but to buy it!

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state_less
<Large tech company> knows _Everything_ about you and the threat of having all
that information looming over peoples head ought to cause fear. If the data is
leaked and mined, lives are harmed and sometimes irreparably. Clearly there is
evidence of damages and I think a lawsuit makes sense. If you poison the air
with mercury causing a significant chance of fetal brain damage, you get sued.
Why should you not be sued if you leak information that leads to suicide,
divorce, etc...?

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benevol
At the end of the day, mass surveillance and the resulting manipulation of
each and everyone of us kills our democracies.

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ap22213
Google has a lot of data on a lot of people, and as such, often they're the
obvious single target.

But, it's useful to keep in mind that the aggregation of all data on a person,
across all sources, is several orders of magnitude greater than what Google
has. And, very recently, that larger set has been merged together.

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vaadu
Any writer that says something similar to Google or Apple are "the world’s
most highly valued company" should be ignored. If they are going to twist the
truth on this what ever else they say is unreliable.

There is no publicly traded company that is even close to the value of some
non-publicly traded companies, ie Saudi Aramco.

~~~
tzakrajs
That is like saying that the US Federal Reserve is a more valuable non-
publicly traded company. The writer is implying that there is no public market
to value that business. While Saudi Arabia mulls over bringing ~20% of Saudi
Aramco public, this is still a far cry from the business having a proper
market valuation on par with the likes of Apple or Google.

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dbpokorny
> Capitalism has been hijacked by a lucrative surveillance project that
> subverts the “normal” evolutionary mechanisms associated with its historical
> success and corrupts the unity of supply and demand that has for centuries,
> however imperfectly, tethered capitalism to the genuine needs of its
> populations and societies, thus enabling the fruitful expansion of market
> democracy.

> genuine needs

Capitalism reflects genuine greed, not genuine need.

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tzakrajs
"You’re giving them information; they sell your information."

This is a common misconception about Google, so one can understand why the
authors came to this conclusion. It would be very interesting to see evidence
to the contrary.

[https://privacy.google.com/about-ads.html](https://privacy.google.com/about-
ads.html)

~~~
ryanobjc
Not sure why you were downvoted, but Google is hardly the most creepy actor
here. My top votes are for Facebook and ad retargeting.

One of the things people don't realize is how strict data hygene and log
access inside Google is. Cross correlating data across major services in an
attempt to demask individuals is a huge no-no and gets you fired.

Plus there is a ton of engineers and staff who deeply care about privacy. You
don't push SSL to every endpoint if you don't care about privacy.

~~~
jacquesm
> You don't push SSL to every endpoint if you don't care about privacy.

Unless you own all the endpoints, then it's just about keeping others out and
maintaining your competitive advantage.

