Surveillance Capitalism

[Skybird]

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleto...ue#pageIndex_2

“Most Americans realize that there are two groups of people who are monitored regularly as they move about the country. The first group is monitored involuntarily by a court order requiring that a tracking device be attached to their ankle. The second group includes everyone else…”

Some will think that this statement is certainly true. Others will worry that it could become true. Perhaps some think it’s ridiculous. It’s not a quote from a dystopian novel, a Silicon Valley executive, or even an NSA official. These are the words of an auto insurance industry consultant intended as a defense of “automotive telematics” and the astonishingly intrusive surveillance capabilities of the allegedly benign systems that are already in use or under development.

Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor, Emerita, Harvard Business School. This essay was written for a 2016 address at Green Templeton College, Oxford. Her forthcoming book is Master or Slave: The Fight for the Soul of Our Information Civilization