Zuboff

Question 1

How does Zuboff define Surveillance Capitalism?

Answer 1

Surveillance Capitalism is a new form of information capitalism aiming to predict and modify human behaviour based on market needs. It is a new economic order claiming that human experience is a free raw material for hidden commercial purposes.
This order is characterised by unprecedented wealth, power, and knowledge concentration. It is an expropriation of human rights, and an overthrow of human sovereignty

Question 2

Which sources of Data does Zuboff identify?

Answer 2

Computer-mediated interactions
Sensors and IoTs
Corporate and Government Databanks
Public and Private Surveillance
non-market activities (everydayness)\

Question 3

How does Zuboff critique Varian’s view on the new contracts in computer-mediated transactions?

Answer 3

While Varian sees computer-mediated transactions to have created new business models with new contracts, he does not realise that these contracts are in fact “un-contracts” stripping away agency. These new contracts force us into compliance and strip away choice and negotiations

Question 4

What is Zuboff’s Big Other concept?

Answer 4

The Big Other is a networked institutional regime that records, modifies, and commodifies the everyday experience.
It is a sovereign power that goes beyond the rule of law, free from detection or sanction, like a coup from above
It is institutionalised in the global infrastructure, and is not escapable.