The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Shoshana Zuboff

Jan 2019 · Sold by PublicAffairs

About this ebook

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior.

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.

Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification."

The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future.

With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

Ratings and reviews

A lot of this information in this book is eye opening... If it's accurate. I can't help but wonder if my lack of knowledge in some aspects of what she is discussing is what is allowing me to believe her stories. There are some things I'm aware of, in regards to marketing... But the technical side I'm a bit... Uneducated... However, she is clearly using examples that factually incorrect to fear monger. Using anecdotes that anyone with a history of the application can tell you that's not how it works, and therefore is untrue. Take Pokemon Go. She uses a story about a bunch of people knocking on people's doors to access a backyard to catch a virtual monster... If they can't see it, they won't know it's there... If they can see it, they don't need to hassle a homeowner. The story doesn't add up and makes me question the information of everything else she discusses. 15 mins of downloading the app and using it would debunk this story.

lots of interesting details and real life examples, though the book is way too opinionated and the language the author uses feels exaggerative and fear mongering.

Made me want to know more about computers.

About the author

Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor emerita, Harvard Business School. She is the author of In The Age of the Smart Machine: the Future of Work and Power and The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and her BA from the University of Chicago. For more information see: ShoshanaZuboff.com.
@shoshanazuboff