Surveillance capitalism is the monetization of data captured through monitoring people’s movements and behaviors online and in the physical world. Consumer surveillance is most commonly used for targeted marketing and advertising.
What began as advertising is now a threat to freedom and democracy. The danger of surveillance capitalism is that platforms and tech companies claim ownership of private information because it is free for them to access, claiming private experience as ‘raw material’ for data factories. There is very little supervision or actual laws by governments and corporations. Nor is there presently any recourse for those of us surveilled.