Over the past week, I have spent more time being aware of my online presence. It is crazy to see how much of my personal information is actually available to the public. Not only is my Facebook linked to many of my other accounts, i.e. Spotify, Airbnb, and Pinterest but I am now ruthlessly followed by everything I have ever looked at in the form of advertisements. According to Mark Andrejevic, “Digital enclosure is the creation of an interactive realm wherein every action and transaction generates information about itself. Although the term implies a physical space, the same characteristics can apply to virtual spaces [Andrejevic, 9].” This speaks directly to websites like Facebook that constantly generate information about you and your preferences, lifestyle, etc.
On market surveillance, I believe there is a line between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in terms of accessibility to private information. Many companies to track consumer habits and shopping trends use digital surveillance. Mark Andrejevic suggests that there is a blurred line between content and advertising. We are so bombarded by advertisements and product placement that I agree the line is very blurred. The question raised here is: is this attractive or can this be considered a violation of privacy? I am targeted by advertisements from things I’ve looked at on Amazon, Priceline, WebMD, and pretty much everything else I’ve ever searched in my life. “When I buy a book at Amazon.com, I’ve purchased a commodity; if Amazon.com sells information about what books I’ve purchased and viewed to a data-mining company, it is selling what Mosco calls a cybernetic commodity [Andrejevic, p.14].” This gives insight on how our information is passed around online. In an article published on Salon, Google argues, “it has the right to collect your most sensitive data, as long as it flows across an open Wi-Fi network [Rosenfeld, Salon.com].” This may concern many people who aren’t too familiar with how Wi-Fi and many other aspects of the Internet work.
Photo Credit: Imgur
There have been a few instances when trying to download music or watch a free movie online where they promise free content and then hit you with a sign up page and sometimes even a page to enter your credit card to “sign up.” Many times I did not ask for this. I believe that the perceived existence of an “electronic panopticon” is in fact real. There most definitely is something hidden in the computer layer of my online activity and monitoring my digital movement. The actual concept of this is a little scary but it can be useful. On the contrary, I don’t believe it can be used to stop people from illegally downloading things off the Internet because there are so many people doing it I firmly believe it is virtually unstoppable. There is not real way to fully monitor every single Internet user across the globe.
- Do you believe our digital surveillance has hit an extreme? Should we begin to worry?
- How will an increase in digital surveillance affect those who have created lives running illegal downloading and streaming websites? Will they be imprisoned?