The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

by Shoshana Zuboff

  Frank Schirrmacher, Germany’s courageous public intellectual and a publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, was an extraordinary source of support and inspiration as I began to piece together my theories of surveillance capitalism and instrumentarian power. Frank urged me to write for FAZ while I pursued the longer work, insisting on publishing essays that, in my monkish way, I would have incubated for many more months or years. I learned so much from our endless discussions, and it is because of Frank that my work on Big Other and surveillance capitalism became useful public frameworks long before this book was finalized. Though he left us four years ago, I still reach for my phone to share a new thought with him. Frank! I am also grateful to current and former colleagues at FAZ, especially Edo Reents and Jordan Mejias who helped bring my essays there to fruition.

  My deepest gratitude goes to the technology and data science professionals who gave so generously of their time, knowledge, and reflections over several years of interviews, as I pieced together my understanding of surveillance capitalism, its mechanisms and imperatives. I would gladly thank each one of these insightful talented teachers by name, but for my promises of confidentiality and anonymity. I also owe a debt of thanks to the families in the UK and Spain whom I interviewed during the worst years of the Great Recession. They taught me so much about “the collision” and how it set the stage upon which surveillance capitalism flourished. Special thanks to the “Montes” family, featured in Chapter 2, and to “David,” the attorney featured in the Pokémon Go narrative, for allowing me to elaborate their stories, though their names and details have been changed to protect their anonymity.

  Several colleagues made invaluable contributions to this work, each one exemplifying the big-hearted selflessness of true scholarship when we gather in the service of ideas. I shall never forget these gifts. Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg has been an extraordinary colleague who read and commented on several drafts and helped me hone my understanding of key themes as they bear on privacy law. Berkeley legal scholar Chris Jay Hoofnagle graciously read a version of the manuscript in its entirety at a crucial stage. His generous comments made an important contribution to this work. The erudite Frank Pasquale read parts of the manuscript at an early stage, offering sage advice, insights, and enthusiasm. David Lidsky brought his immense editorial talents to an earlier draft of the manuscript. His collegiality, conceptual grasp, and unparalleled mastery of craft helped me to discover the final structure of this work. My deepest thanks also go to several other colleagues who read drafts of individual chapters at various junctures during the last five years and shared their discerning comments: Paul Schwartz, Artemi Rallo, Mikkel Flyverbom, David Lyon, Martha Poon, Mathias Doepfner, Karyn Allen, and Peter van den Heuvel. Both Chris Soghian and Bruce Schneier tolerated my questions on encryption and data processing as I worked out my understanding of the foundational mechanisms of surveillance capitalism.

  Thinking and writing are solitary projects, and I am thankful to colleagues who offered opportunities to share ideas with scholars and students. Jonathan Zittrain invited my participation as a Faculty Associate at the Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at an important time in the development of my thinking. David Lyon and David Murakami Wood hosted me at Queens University toward the end of this project, where discussions with faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates energized the final stages of writing. Special thanks go to Queens undergraduates Helen Kosc and Qianli Chen for their insightful comments. There were many other wonderful invitations that I forfeited to my obligation to these pages, and I remain deeply appreciative of my colleagues around the world who voiced their interest in this work. Though they could not know it, their enthusiasm kept me going.

  Thanks to Leslie Willcocks at the London School of Economics and Chris Sauer at Oxford for their early intellectual support. As co-editors of a special issue of the Journal of Information Technology devoted to the theme of “big data,” they enthusiastically embraced my first academic paper on surveillance capitalism, “Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization,” and helped speed its way to publication. Special thanks to the Senior Scholars of the International Conference on Information Systems for their recognition of “Big Other” with the ICIS’s 2016 Best Paper Award, which also fortified my commitment to this larger work.

  My literary agent Wayne Kabak resonated with this project from the start and has been tireless in his encouragement and support. I treasure his friendship and wise counsel. My editor John Mahaney has been a passionate advocate of this undertaking, bringing his years of editorial wisdom to every draft and keeping me focused on the road ahead. Thanks to Kristina Fazzalaro, Jaime Leifer, Collin Tracy, Stephanie Summerhays, and the entire PublicAffairs team for their enduring commitment and support.

  My ambitions for this book could not have been fulfilled without my cherished home team. My citations manager, William Dickie, joined me in 2014, when he couldn’t have had any idea of what he was getting into. Instead of running away as the project grew, he rolled up his sleeves and learned to master the citations process with a determination that evolved into mastery. I am so grateful for his patient spirit, kind heart, thoughtful contributions, and friendship as he quietly and diligently pursued his responsibilities. My research assistant Jordan Keenan joined this project in early 2015 and hit the ground running with outstanding contributions as he mastered the professional art of the research deep dive. I have relied on him through the twists and turns of this intellectual journey, and I watched him rise to each new challenge with grace and gusto as he trained his lively intelligence on new research territories. As if that were not enough, his unflappable good cheer, laid-back humor, and quiet sensitivity have made him an invaluable companion on this adventure.

  My children selflessly supported my work on this book for these many years. They listened to my ideas, nurtured me through my frustrations, and celebrated my successes with so much love, patience, and devotion. When forks in the road required urgent decisions, they gathered round to help. My daughter Chloe Maxmin has been a steadfast and wise counselor, reading each draft of each chapter and offering the kind of unvarnished incisive commentary that all writers need but few receive. I learned that chapters were complete only when Chloe signed off on them. My son, Jake Maxmin, endured this book project throughout his college and now graduate school careers. Jake has been a fierce advocate, showering me with texts and phone calls, “You’ve got this mama,” whenever I faced a difficult stretch or deadline and stepping in to provide crucial help with final edits. Chloe and Jake’s astute advice and inspiration never failed to get me over the mountain. Thank you mis vidas, mis corazones. I would not be here without you.

  I offer loving thanks to my friends who shared holidays and celebrations when I was lost to writing and every table, chair, and floor was covered with research materials: Minda Gold, Jacques Vesery, Isaac Vesery, Jonah Vesery, Lisa Katz, Ed, Theo, and Toby Seidel, Mary Dee Choate Grant, Garret Grant, Kathy Leeman, Kerry Altiero. Kathy Leeman read the book in its entirety before I began final revisions. Her perceptiveness and fervor were immensely helpful during the last year of writing. Virginia Alicia Hasenbalg-Corabianu cheered me on from Paris (“please finish this book already!”), hosted my children, and heroically translated one of my published lectures on surveillance capitalism into French. Susan Tross was an unconditional wellspring of love and support. My friend and “adopted son” Canyon Woodward has been a faithful cheerleader, always galvanizing my spirit and my stories. Finally, these declarations of acknowledgment are not complete without mention of Pachi Maxmin, my stalwart loving companion.

  Every author acknowledges what I am about to write, because it is true: In the end, one faces the page in solitude. Anything in this book that falls short of the trust invested in me is my responsibility alone.

  SHOSHANA ZUBOFF is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor emerita at Harvard Business School and a former faculty a
ssociate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. She joined HBS’s faculty in 1981, where she was one of its first tenured women. She received her PhD in social psychology from Harvard University and her BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago. Her previous book, In the Age of the Smart Machine, was characterized on the front page of the New York Times Book Review as “a work of rare originality.” She has been a frequent contributor to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as well as a columnist for BusinessWeek.com and Fast Company. strategy+business magazine named Zuboff one of the eleven most original business thinkers in the world. Her 2015 article on surveillance capitalism, “Big Other,” received the Best Paper Award from the International Conference on Information Systems. For more information, see shoshanazuboff.com. @shoshanazuboff

  Praise for The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

  “The defining challenge for the future of the market economy is the concentration of data, knowledge, and surveillance power. Not just our privacy but our individuality is at stake, and this very readable and thought-provoking book alerts us to these existential dangers. Highly recommended.”

  —Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Why Nations Fail

  “Zuboff’s expansive, erudite, deeply researched exploration of digital futures elucidates the norms and hidden terminal goals of information-intensive industries. Zuboff’s book is the information industry’s Silent Spring.”

  —Chris Hoofnagle, University of California, Berkeley

  “A panoramic exploration of one of the most urgent issues of our times, Zuboff reinterprets contemporary capitalism through the prism of the digital revolution, producing a book of immense ambition and erudition. Zuboff is one of our most prescient and profound thinkers on the rise of the digital. In an age of inane Twitter soundbites and narcissistic Facebook posts, Zuboff’s serious scholarship is great cause for celebration.”

  —Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future

  “From the very first page I was consumed with an overwhelming imperative: everyone needs to read this book as an act of digital self-defense. With tremendous lucidity and moral courage, Zuboff demonstrates not only how our minds are being mined for data but also how they are being rapidly and radically changed in the process. The hour is late and much has been lost already—but as we learn in these indispensable pages, there is still hope for emancipation.”

  —Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and No Logo, and Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University

  “Zuboff is a strikingly original voice, simultaneously bold and wise, eloquent and passionate, learned and accessible. Read this book to understand the inner workings of today’s digital capitalism, its threats to twenty-first-century society, and the reforms we must make for a better tomorrow.”

  —Frank Pasquale, University of Maryland Carey School of Law

  “I will make a guarantee: Assuming we survive to tell the tale, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism has a high probability of joining the likes of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and Max Weber’s Economy and Society as defining social-economics texts of modern times. It is not a ‘quick read’; it is to be savored and re-read and discussed with colleagues and friends. No zippy one-liners from me, except to almost literally beg you to read/ingest this book.”

  —Tom Peters, coauthor of In Search of Excellence

  “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is brilliant and essential. Shoshana Zuboff reveals capitalism’s most dangerous frontier with stunning clarity: The new economic order of surveillance capitalism founded on extreme inequalities of knowledge and power. Her sweeping analysis demonstrates the unprecedented challenges to human autonomy, social solidarity, and democracy perpetrated by this rogue capitalism. Zuboff’s book finally empowers us to understand and fight these threats effectively—a masterpiece of rare conceptual daring, beautifully written and deeply urgent.”

  —Robert B. Reich, author of The Common Good and Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few

  “My mind is blown on every page by the depth of Shoshana’s research, the breadth of her knowledge, the rigor of her intellect, and finally by the power of her arguments. I’m not sure we can end the age of surveillance capitalism without her help, and that’s why I believe this is the most important book of our time.”

  —Doc Searls, author of The Intention Economy, and editor-in-chief of Linux Journal

  “Shoshana Zuboff has produced the most provocative compelling moral framework thus far for understanding the new realities of our digital environment and its anti-democratic threats. From now on, all serious writings on the internet and society will have to take into account The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.”

  —Joseph Turow, Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication, Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania

  “In the future, if people still read books, they will view this as the classic study of how everything changed. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a masterpiece that stunningly reveals the essence of twenty-first-century society, and offers a dire warning about technology gone awry that we ignore at our peril. Shoshana Zuboff has somehow escaped from the fishbowl in which we all now live and introduced to us the concept of water. A work of penetrating intellect, this is also a deeply human book about what is becoming, as it relentlessly demonstrates, a dangerously inhuman time.”

  —Kevin Werbach, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust

  DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  Home or Exile in the Digital Future

  I. The Oldest Questions

  II. Requiem for a Home

  III. What Is Surveillance Capitalism?

  IV. The Unprecedented

  V. The Puppet Master, Not the Puppet

  VI. The Outline, Themes, and Sources of this Book

  PART I

  The Foundations of Surveillance Capitalism

  CHAPTER TWO

  August 9, 2011: Setting the Stage for Surveillance Capitalism

  I. The Apple Hack

  II. The Two Modernities

  III. The Neoliberal Habitat

  IV. The Instability of the Second Modernity

  V. A Third Modernity

  VI. Surveillance Capitalism Fills the Void

  VII. For a Human Future

  VIII. Naming and Taming

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Discovery of Behavioral Surplus

  I. Google: The Pioneer of Surveillance Capitalism

  II. A Balance of Power

  III. Search for Capitalism: Impatient Money and the State of Exception

  IV. The Discovery of Behavioral Surplus

  V. Surplus at Scale

  VI. A Human Invention

  VII. The Secrets of Extraction

  VIII. Summarizing the Logic and Operations of Surveillance Capitalism

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Moat Around the Castle

  I. Human Natural Resources

  II. The Cry Freedom Strategy

  III. Shelter: The Neoliberal Legacy

  IV. Shelter: Surveillance Exceptionalism

  V. Fortifications

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Elaboration of Surveillance Capitalism: Kidnap, Corner, Compete

  I. The Extraction Imperative

  II. Cornered

  III. The Dispossession Cycle

  Stage One: Incursion

  Stage Two: Habituation

  Stage Three: Adaptation

  Stage Four: Redirection

  IV. The Dogs of Audacity

  V. Dispossession Competition

  VI. The Siren Song of Surveillance Revenues

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hijacked: The Division of Learning in Society

  I. The Google Declarations

  II. Who Knows?

  III. Surveillance Capital and the Two Texts

  IV. The New Priesthoo
d

  V. The Privatization of the Division of Learning in Society

  VI. The Power of the Unprecedented: A Review

  PART II

  The Advance of Surveillance Capitalism

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Reality Business

  I. The Prediction Imperative

  II. The Tender Conquest of Unrestrained Animals

  III. Human Herds

  IV. Surveillance Capitalism’s Realpolitik

  V. Certainty for Profit

  VI. Executing the Uncontract

  VII. Inevitabilism

  VIII. Men Made It

  IX. To the Ground Campaign

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Rendition: From Experience to Data

  I. Terms of Sur-Render

  II. Body Rendition

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rendition from the Depths

  I. Personalization as Conquest

  II. Rendition of the Self

  III. Machine Emotion

  IV. When They Come for My Truth

  CHAPTER TEN

  Make Them Dance

  I. Economies of Action

  II. Facebook Writes the Music

  III. Pokémon Go! Do!

  IV. What Were the Means of Behavioral Modification?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Right to the Future Tense

  I. I Will to Will

  II. We Will to Will

  III. How Did They Get Away with It?

  IV. Prophecy

  PART III

  Instrumentarian Power for a Third Modernity

  CHAPTER TWELVE