The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

by Shoshana Zuboff

  85. Jose Antonio Vargas, “The Face of Facebook,” New Yorker, September 13, 2010, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/20/the-face-of-facebook.

  86. Cynthia Ghazali, “Facebook Keeps Tabs on Users Even After They Sign Off: Report,” NY Daily News, November 18, 2011, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/money/facebook-tabs-users-sign-report-article-1.979848.

  87. Amir Efrati, “‘Like’ Button Follows Web Users,” Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2011, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704281504576329441432995616. See also, Emil Protalinski, “Facebook Denies Cookie Tracking Allegations,” ZDNet, October 3, 2011, https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-denies-cookie-tracking-allegations/; Riva Richmond, “As ‘Like’ Buttons Spread, So Do Facebook’s Tentacles,” New York Times—Bits Blog, September 27, 2011, https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/as-like-buttons-spread-so-do-facebooks-tentacles/; Julia Angwin, “It’s Complicated: Facebook’s History of Tracking You,” ProPublica, June 17, 2014, https://www.propublica.org/article/its-complicated-facebooks-history-of-tracking-you; Rainey Reitman, “Facebook’s Hotel California: Cross-Site Tracking and the Potential Impact on Digital Privacy Legislation,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 10, 2011, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/facebook%E2%80%99s-hotel-california-cross-site-tracking-and-potential-impact-digital-privacy.

  88. Asher Moses, “Facebook’s Privacy Lie: Aussie Exposes ‘Tracking’ as New Patent Uncovered,” The Sydney Morning Herald, October 4, 2011, https://www.smh.com.au/technology/facebooks-privacy-lie-aussie-exposes-tracking-as-new-patent-uncovered-20111004-1l61i.html.

  89. Moses; Emil Protalinski, “Facebook Denies Cookie Tracking Allegations;” Emil Protalinski, “Facebook Fixes Cookie Behavior After Logging Out,” ZDNet, September 27, 2011, https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-fixes-cookie-behavior-after-logging-out/; Nik Cubrilovic, “Facebook Fixes Logout Issue, Explains Cookies,” New Web Order, September 27, 2011, https://web.archive.org/web/20140701103652/https://www.nikcub.com/posts/face book-fixes-logout-issue-explains-cookies-2/.

  90. Kent Matthew Schoen, Gregory Luc Dingle, and Timothy Kendall, “Communicating information in a social network system about activities from another domain,” WO2011097624 A3, filed February 8, 2011, and issued September 22, 2011, http://www.google.com/patents/WO2011097624A3.

  91. Emil Protalinski, “Facebook Denies Patent Is Used for Tracking Logged-out Users,” ZDNet, October 3, 2011, https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-denies-patent-is-used-for-tracking-logged-out-users/. See also Michael Arrington, “Facebook: Brutal Dishonesty,” Uncrunched (blog), October 2, 2011, https://uncrunched.com/2011/10/01/brutal-dishonesty/.

  92. Just a day after the Cubrilovic post, the Hill confirmed that Facebook had filed to start its own political action committee, which aimed to support candidates who “share our goals of promoting the value of innovation” and making the world “more open and connected.” Gautham Nagesh, “Facebook to Form Its Own PAC to Back Political Candidates,” Hill, September 26, 2011, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/183951-facebook-forming-own-pac-to-back-candidates.

  93. “Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers by Failing to Keep Privacy Promises,” Federal Trade Commission, November 29, 2011, https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/11/facebook-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-failing-keep.

  94. “FTC Facebook Settlement,” Electronic Privacy Information Center, December 2009, https://epic.org/privacy/ftc/facebook/.

  95. “Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers.” See also Emily Steel and April Dembosky, “Facebook Raises Fears with Ad Tracking,” Financial Times, September 23, 2012, https://www.ft.com/content/6cc4cf0a-0584-11e2-9ebd-00144feabdc0.

  96. “Facebook Custom Audiences: Target Facebook Ads by Email List,” Jon Loomer Digital, September 24, 2012, https://www.jonloomer.com/2012/09/24/facebook-custom-audiences/.

  97. Tom Simonite, “Facebook Will Now Target Ads Based on What Its Like Buttons Saw You Do,” MIT Technology Review, September 16, 2015, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/541351/facebooks-like-buttons-will-soon-track-your-web-browsing-to-target-ads; Cotton Delo, “Facebook to Use Web Browsing History for Ad Targeting,” AdAge, June 12, 2014, http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-web-browsing-history-ad-targeting/293656; Violet Blue, “Facebook Turns User Tracking ‘Bug” into Data Mining ‘Feature’ for Advertisers,” ZDNet, https://www.zdnet.com/article/facebook-turns-user-tracking-bug-into-data-mining-feature-for-advertisers/.

  98. Julia Angwin, “Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking,” ProPublica, October 21, 2016, https://www.propublica.org/article/google-has-quietly-dropped-ban-on-personally-identifiable-web-tracking; Jack Nicas, “Privacy Groups Seek Regulatory Review of Google Privacy Policy,” Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/privacy-groups-seek-regulatory-review-of-google-privacy-policy-1482190366.

  99. Ross Hunter, Farhad Zaman, and Kennedy Liu, “Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalisation,” IPO Center, Price Waterhouse Coopers, March 31, 2017, http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/audit-services/assets/pdf/global-top-100-companies-2017-final.pdf; Deborah Crawford et al., “Facebook, Inc. (FB)—Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2016 Results Conference Call,” February 1, 2017, https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2016/Q4/Q4’16-Earnings-Transcript.pdf.

  100. Julia Kollewe, “Google and Facebook Bring in One-Fifth of Global Ad Revenue,” Guardian, May 1, 2017, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/may/02/google-and-facebook-bring-in-one-fifth-of-global-ad-revenue; Paul Murphy, “It Seems Google and Facebook Really Are Taking ALL the Growth in Ad Revenue,” Financial Times, April 26, 2017, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2017/04/26/2187891/it-seems-google-and-facebook-really-are-taking-all-the-growth-in-ad-revenue; Mathew Ingram, “Google and Facebook Have Taken Over the Digital Ad Industry,” Fortune, January 4, 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/01/04/google-facebook-ad-industry.

  101. Kara Swisher, “Microsoft’s Point Man on Search—Satya Nadella—Speaks: ‘It’s a Game of Scale,’” AllThingsD (blog), August 4, 2009, http://allthingsd.com/2009 0804/microsofts-point-man-on-search-satya-nadella-speaks-its-a-game-of-scale.

  102. Julie Bort, “Satya Nadella Just Launched Microsoft into a New $1.6 Trillion Market,” Business Insider, April 15, 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/micro soft-launches-iot-cloud-2014-4.

  103. Satya Nadella, “A Data Culture for Everyone,” Official Microsoft Blog, April 15, 2014, https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/04/15/a-data-culture-for-everyone.

  104. Richard Qian, “Understand Your World with Bing,” Bing Blogs, March 21, 2013, http://blogs.bing.com/search/2013/03/21/understand-your-world-with-bing.

  105. See Dan Farber, “Microsoft’s Bing Seeks Enlightenment with Satori,” CNET, July 30, 2013, https://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-bing-seeks-enlightenment-with-satori.

  106. Greg Sterling, “Milestone: Bing Now Profitable as Windows 10 Success Boosts Usage,” Search Engine Land, October 23, 2015, http://searchengineland.com/milestone-bing-now-profitable-as-windows-10-success-boosts-usage-234285.

  107. See Ginny Marvin, “After a Year of Transition, Microsoft Execs Say, ‘We’re All in on Search,’” Search Engine Land, November 23, 2015, http://searchengineland.com/microsoft-execs-all-in-on-search-bing-ads-next-236746.

  108. “Cortana and Privacy,” Microsoft, November 11, 2016, https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-10-cortana-and-privacy.

  109. See Dan Kedmey, “Here’s What Really Makes Microsoft’s Cortana So Amazing,” Time, July 20, 2015, http://time.com/3960670/windows-10-cortana.

  110. See “Artificial Intelligence: A Virtual Assistant for Life,” Financial Times, February 23, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/4f2f97ea-b8ec-11e4-b8e6-00144feab7de.

  111. “Microsoft Outlines Intelligence Vision and Announces New Innovations for Windows 10,” Microsoft News Center (blog), March 30, 2016, https://news.microsoft.com/2016/03/30/microsoft-outlines-intelligence-vision-and-announces-new-innovations
-for-windows-10.

  112. Chris Messina, “Conversational Commerce: Messaging Apps Bring the Point of Sale to You,” Medium, January 16, 2015, https://medium.com/chris-messina/conversational-commerce-92e0bccfc3ff#.sdpy3xp3b.

  113. Shish Shridhar, “We Don’t Need Yet Another App, Conversations Are the New App,” Microsoft Developer Blogs—the ShiSh List, May 21, 2016, https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/shishirs/2016/05/21/we-dont-need-yet-another-app-conversations-are-the-new-app.

  114. Terry Myerson, “Hello World: Windows 10 Available on July 29,” Windows Experience Blog, June 1, 2015, https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2015/06/01/hello-world-windows-10-available-on-july-29.

  115. David Auerbach, “Broken Windows Theory,” Slate, August 3, 2015, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/08/windows_10_privacy_problems_here_s_how_bad_they_are_and_how_to_plug_them.html.

  116. Peter Bright, “Even When Told Not to, Windows 10 Just Can’t Stop Talking to Microsoft,” Ars Technica, August 13, 2015, https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/even-when-told-not-to-windows-10-just-cant-stop-talking-to-microsoft.

  117. Amul Kalia, “With Windows 10, Microsoft Blatantly Disregards User Choice and Privacy: A Deep Dive,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 17, 2016, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/windows-10-microsoft-blatantly-disregards-user-choice-and-privacy-deep-dive; Conner Forrest, “Windows 10 Violates Your Privacy by Default, Here’s How You Can Protect Yourself,” TechRepublic, August 4, 2015, http://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-violates-your-privacy-by-default-heres-how-you-can-protect-yourself; Alec Meer, “Windows 10 Is Spying on You: Here’s How to Stop It,” Rock, Paper, Shotgun (blog), July 30, 2015, https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/30/windows-10-privacy-settings.

  118. “About Us—LinkedIn,” LinkedIn, November 11, 2016, https://press.linkedin.com/about-linkedin; Satya Nadella et al., “Slides from Microsoft Investors Call Announcing LinkedIn Acquisition—World’s Leading Professional Cloud + Network—Microsoft’s and LinkedIn’s Vision for the Opportunity Ahead,” June 13, 2016, https://ncmedia.azureedge.net/ncmedia/2016/06/msft_announce_160613.pdf.

  119. Nadella et al., “Slides from Microsoft.”

  120. Supantha Mukherjee, “Microsoft’s Market Value Tops $500 Billion Again After 17 Years,” Reuters, January 27, 2015, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-results-research/microsofts-market-value-tops-500-billion-again-after-17-years-idUSKBN15B1L6.

  121. Brian Fung, “Internet Providers Want to Know More About You Than Google Does, Privacy Groups Say,” Washington Post, January 20, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/01/20/your-internet-provider-is-turning-into-a-data-hungry-tech-company-consumer-groups-warn.

  122. Melissa Parietti, “The World’s Top 10 Telecommunications Companies,” Investopedia, March 2, 2016, http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/030216/worlds-top-10-telecommunications-companies.asp; Eric Griffith, “The Fastest ISPs of 2016,” PCMAG, August 31, 2016, http://www.pcmag.com/article/346232/the-fastest-isps-of-2016.

  123. See Mark Bergen and Alex Kantrowitz, “Verizon Looks to Target Its Mobile Subscribers with Ads,” Advertising Age, May 21, 2014, http://adage.com/article/digital/verizon-target-mobile-subscribers-ads/293356.

  124. See Julia Angwin and Mike Tigas, “How This Company Is Using Zombie Cookies to Track Verizon Customers,” ProPublica, January 14, 2015, https://www.propublica.org/article/zombie-cookie-the-tracking-cookie-that-you-cant-kill.

  125. Robert McMillan, “Verizon’s ‘Perma-Cookie’ Is a Privacy-Killing Machine,” Wired, October 2014, http://www.wired.com/2014/10/verizons-perma-cookie.

  126. Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, “Verizon Injecting Perma-Cookies to Track Mobile Customers, Bypassing Privacy Controls,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 3, 2014, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/verizon-x-uidh.

  127. Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson, “Somebody’s Already Using Verizon’s ID to Track Users,” ProPublica, October 30, 2014, http://www.propublica.org/article/some bodys-already-using-verizons-id-to-track-users.

  128. Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, “How Verizon and Turn Defeat Browser Privacy Protections,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 14, 2015, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/verizon-and-turn-break-browser-privacy-protections.

  129. Julia Angwin, “AT&T Stops Using Undeletable Phone Tracking IDs,” ProPublica, November 14, 2014, http://www.propublica.org/article/att-stops-using-undeletable-phone-tracking-ids; Angwin and Tigas, “How This Company Is Using Zombie Cookies.”

  130. Angwin and Larson, “Somebody’s Already Using Verizon’s ID.”

  131. Jonathan Mayer, “The Turn-Verizon Zombie Cookie,” Web Policy (blog), January 14, 2015, http://webpolicy.org/2015/01/14/turn-verizon-zombie-cookie; Allison Schiff, “Can You Identify Me Now? A Deep Dive on Verizon’s Data Practices,” AdExchanger, October 9, 2014, http://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/can-you-identify-me-now-a-deep-dive-on-verizons-data-practices.

  132. Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, “Under Senate Pressure, Verizon Plans Supercookie Opt-Out,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 2, 2015, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/under-senate-pressure-verizon-improves-its-supercookie-opt-out.

  133. Bill Nelson et al., “Letter to Mr. Lowell C. McAdam, Chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications from United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,” January 29, 2015, http://thehill.com/sites/default/files/nelson-blumenthal-schatz-markey_letter_to_verizon_re_supercookies.pdf.

  134. Brian X. Chen and Natasha Singer, “Verizon Wireless to Allow Complete Opt Out of Mobile ‘Supercookies,’” New York Times—Bits Blog, January 30, 2015, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/verizon-wireless-to-allow-complete-opt-out-of-mobile-supercookies.

  135. See Edmund Ingham, “Verizon Had One Thing on Its Mind When It Agreed to Buy AOL: CEO Tim Armstrong,” Forbes, May 13, 2015, http://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/05/13/verizon-had-one-thing-on-its-mind-when-it-agreed-to-buy-aol-ceo-tim-armstrong. See also Alexander Nazaryan, “How Tim Armstrong Bested Marissa Mayer,” Newsweek, July 25, 2016, http://www.newsweek.com/marissa-mayer-tim-armstrong-nerd-prom-483539.

  136. “Advertising Programs Privacy Notice—October 2015,” Verizon, December 7, 2015, http://www.verizon.com/about/privacy/advertising-programs-privacy-notice; Julia Angwin and Jeff Larson, “Verizon’s Zombie Cookie Gets New Life,” ProPublica, October 6, 2015, https://www.propublica.org/article/verizons-zombie-cookie-gets-new-life.

  137. Julia Angwin, “Verizon to Pay $1.35 Million to Settle Zombie Cookie Privacy Charges,” ProPublica, March 7, 2016, https://www.propublica.org/article/verizon-to-pay-1.35-million-to-settle-zombie-cookie-privacy-charges.

  138. Mike Shields and Ryan Knutson, “AOL’s Tim Armstrong Aims to Build Digital-Ad Empire at Verizon,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/aols-tim-armstrong-aims-to-build-digital-ad-empire-at-verizon-1459330200.

  139. Tom Wheeler, “Statement of Chairman Tom Wheeler in Reply to WC Docket No. 16-106—Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunications Services,” Federal Communications Commission, 2016.

  140. Alina Selyukh, “FCC Votes to Propose New Privacy Rules for Internet Service Providers,” NPR.org, March 31, 2016, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/31/472528382/fcc-votes-to-propose-new-privacy-rules-for-internet-service-providers.

  141. “FCC Adopts Privacy Rules to Give Broadband Consumers Increased Choice, Transparency and Security for Their Personal Data,” Federal Communications Commission, October 27, 2016, https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-broadband-consumer-privacy-rules; Wendy Davis, “Broadband Providers Push Back Against Tough Privacy Proposal,” MediaPost, March 10, 2016, http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/270983/broadband-providers-push-back-against-tough-privac.html; Brian Fung and Craig Timberg, “The FCC Just Passed Sweeping New Rules to Protect Your Online Privacy,” Washington Post, October 27, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/w
p/2016/10/27/the-fcc-just-passed-sweeping-new-rules-to-protect-your-online-privacy.

  142. Michelle Castillo, “AOL’s Tim Armstrong: Yahoo Helps Verizon Compete Against Facebook, Google,” CNBC, July 25, 2016, http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/25/aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-yahoo-deal-helps-verizon-against-facebook-google.html.

  143. See Kara Swisher, “AOL’s Tim Armstrong Says ‘Scale Is Imperative’ in the Verizon-Yahoo Deal,” Recode, July 25, 2016, http://www.recode.net/2016/7/25/12269980/aol-tim-armstrong-scale-imperative-yahoo-deal.

  144. See Ingrid Lunden, “AOL CEO on Yahoo Deal: ‘We Want to Get to 2B Users,’” TechCrunch (blog), July 25, 2016, http://social.techcrunch.com/2016/07/25/aol-ceo-armstrongs-yahoo-memo-well-work-closely-with-marissa.

  145. Tom Wheeler, “How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy to Internet Providers,” New York Times, March 29, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion/how-the-republicans-sold-your-privacy-to-internet-providers.html; “Republicans Attack Internet Privacy,” New York Times, March 29, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion/republicans-attack-internet-privacy.html; Cecilia Kang, “Congress Moves to Overturn Obama-Era Online Privacy Rules,” New York Times, March 28, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/28/technology/congress-votes-to-overturn-obama-era-online-privacy-rules.html; “The House Just Voted to Wipe Out the FCC’s Landmark Internet Privacy Protections,” Washington Post, March 28, 2017, https://www.washington post.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/28/the-house-just-voted-to-wipe-out-the-fccs-landmark-internet-privacy-protections.

  146. Brian Fung, “It’s Begun: Internet Providers Are Pushing to Repeal Obama-Era Privacy Rules,” Washington Post, January 4, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/01/04/its-begun-cable-companies-are-pushing-to-repeal-obama-era-internet-privacy-rules.

  147. Wheeler, “How the Republicans Sold Your Privacy.”

  148. Jack Marshall, “With Washington’s Blessing, Telecom Giants Can Mine Your Web History,” Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-washingtons-blessing-telecom-giants-can-mine-your-web-history-1490869801; Olivia Solon, “What to Know Before Lawmakers Decide if ISPs Can Sell Your Browsing History,” Guardian, March 28, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/28/internet-service-providers-sell-browsing-history-house-vote; Bruce Schneier, “Snoops May Soon Be Able to Buy Your Browsing History. Thank the US Congress,” Guardian, March 30, 2017, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/30/snoops-buy-your-browsing-history-us-congress; Jeremy Gillula, “Five Creepy Things Your ISP Could Do if Congress Repeals the FCC’s Privacy Protections,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, March 19, 2017, https://www.eff.org/deep links/2017/03/five-creepy-things-your-isp-could-do-if-congress-repeals-fccs-privacy-protections.