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The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
Abstract
Behavioral surplus defines Google’s earnings success. In 2016, 89 percent of the revenues of its parent company, Alphabet, derived from Google’s targeted advertising programs. The scale of raw-material flows is reflected in Google’s domination of the internet, processing over 40,000 search queries every second on average: more than 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide in 2017. Instrumentarian power cultivates an unusual “way of knowing” that combines the “formal indifference” of the neoliberal worldview with the observational perspective of radical behaviorism. Instrumentarianism and Big Other signal the transformation of the market into a project of total certainty, an undertaking that is unimaginable outside the digital milieu, but also unimaginable outside the logic of accumulation that is surveillance capitalism. In the US, local law enforcement has joined the queue of institutions seeking access to instrumentarian power.
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“The prevailing business model of many technology companies relies on maximising time-on-platform and harvesting vast quantities of user data to feed algorithmic recommendation systems and monetise attention through targeted advertising (Zuboff, 2023).”
From Virtual Reality Risks for Children in the Metaverse: An Examination through Criminological Perspectives (2026) · cites this paper as Zuboff, 2023
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“Meanwhile, some commercial platforms continue to prioritise user engagement and data extraction over ethical responsibility.”
From Virtual Reality Risks for Children in the Metaverse: An Examination through Criminological Perspectives (2026) · cites this paper as Zuboff, 2023
In the citing paper
“This will enable exploitation of consumers’ biases or vulnerabilities in order to capture more of the consumer surplus via price discrimination or violations of consumer privacy, leading to “surveillance capitalism” (9, 10).”
From The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making (2024) · cites this paper as [10]
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The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making
Capraro, V., Lentsch, A., Acemoglu, D., Akgun, S., Akhmedova, A., Bilancini, E., Bonnefon, J.-F., Brañas-Garza, P., Butera, L., Douglas, K. M., et al. (2024) · PNAS Nexus · doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae191 · Cited by 371
Introduction: Critical studies of digital education platforms
Decuypere, M., Grimaldi, E., & Landri, P. (2021) · Critical Studies in Education · doi:10.1080/17508487.2020.1866050 · Cited by 337
Sadowski, J. (2020) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/12240.001.0001 · Cited by 340
Valle-Cruz, D., Criado, J. I., Sandoval‐Almazán, R., & Ruvalcaba-Gómez, E. A. (2020) · Government Information Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.giq.2020.101509 · Cited by 322
Bonini, T., & Treré, E. (2024) · The MIT Press eBooks · doi:10.7551/mitpress/14329.001.0001 · Cited by 247
Metadata
- Authors
- Zuboff, S.
- Corresponding author
- Zuboff, Shoshana
- Venue
- Social Theory Re-Wired
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2023-04-28
- Pages
- 203-213
- OpenAlex
- W3143251375
- Cited by
- 764
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 201 · 2025: 151 · 2024: 111 · 2023: 31
- FWCI
- 717.74
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Routledge eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Cultural Studies and Postmodernism
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Privacy, Security, and Data Protection
- Keywords
- surveillance capitalism, targeted advertising, Google, alphabet, radical behaviorism, neoliberalism, Big Other, search engines, law enforcement access to data, digital capitalism
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