What is surveillance capitalism?

What is surveillance capitalism? And how can you shield yourself?

You have certainly been there: an ad on Facebook or a search engine results page looks eerily out of place, because the subject thereof isn’t something you actually need but a topic of a recent conversation, or a casual lookup to settle a dinner table dispute, or something else of this kind. Totally irrelevant for you as a consumer, yet somehow intervened with the recent course of your life. Of course, you’ve heard that tech giants watch your every step and listen to what you say, but it somehow felt distant and from the domain of conspiracy theories. While such assumptions are often far-fetched, the phenomenon is real, and it’s called surveillance capitalism (also known as data-driven, digital capitalism, and behavioral data economy).

There is no use looking for some telltale signs of the mechanisms of surveillance capitalism targeting you: the ad example given above also shows that the said mechanisms are ubiquitous. It is always nice, though, to know more about what’s going on, especially if it concerns you directly. This piece, the next installment in the “Cybersecurity for the masses” series, tells you what surveillance capitalism is (briefly and in a friendly manner), and suggests some measures you can take to restore your privacy at least to some decent extent.

Surveillance capitalism explained

The concept of surveillance capitalism was popularized by Shoshana Zuboff, a Harvard professor, in her 2019 magnum opus The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. The concept itself was first introduced in 2014 by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, but before Zuboff’s investigation of the subject, it remained largely unknown to the public.

Simply put, surveillance capitalism is a system that revolves around collecting, analyzing, and monetizing data extracted from people’s activities that somehow involve devices. The controversial thing about surveillance capitalism is that these operations with personal data are often conducted without the explicit knowledge or consent of their sources, the consumers.

The obtained information is processed and fed to the algorithms that predict, influence, and sometimes enable direct manipulation of the individual’s behavior, with primary vehicles in these processes being targeted advertising and marketing. It does not matter how you perceive the situation, whether it’s bad or good, in your opinion; what matters is that data-driven economy is real, and it’s here to stay.

How to protect your privacy (at least partially)

Here are some measures you can take to minimize the intrusion of surveillance capitalism into your personal affairs as much as possible without resorting to highly specialized software, hardware, and practices.

Privacy-focused browsers and extensions. Yes, there are such out there; in the domain of browsers, the one that claims to cut off much, if not all, data streams is Brave, with Firefox also considered a good option in this respect. If you don’t want to switch, think about adding extensions like uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Ghostery, or AdGuard to your setup. These tools block trackers, ads, and scripts that collect your data as you browse the web.

Anti-tracking software. If securing your browser feels like a half measure, consider downloading special programs that block tracking attempts at all (presumably) levels, like Avast AntiTrack and AdGuard. Most of them can also mask your IP address and prevent websites from profiling your online behavior.

Resource consumption monitoring. This is just a good habit: check Task Manager for abnormalities every now and then, and/or take the next step and get Sysinternals for added flexibility and deeper field of view. Read these pieces for details:

Social media sharing. Be mindful of what you post and share on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. These two, along with Google, are often considered to be the top dogs in this system, and the biggest beneficiaries thereof. Just think twice before publishing anything.

VPN. A Virtual Private Network (VPN) can help conceal your IP address and encrypt the traffic you exchange over the web, which means trackers will have a much harder time intercepting your data, and ad companies may not eventually be able to use them in your profile. We’ve covered VPNs in these posts, catch up if you’ve missed them:

Stay tuned for more advice about how you can make your life online safer!