A tiny handful of tech firms dominate third-party commercial surveillance of the web.

Evidence

Another 2015 analysis, this one of the top one million websites, by Timothy Libert of the University of Pennsylvania, found that 90 percent leak data to an average of nine external domains that track, capture, and expropriate user data for commercial purposes. Among these websites, 78 percent initiate third-party transfers to a domain owned by one company: Google. Another 34 percent transfer to a Facebook-owned domain. Steven Englehardt and Arvind Narayanan from Princeton University reported in 2016 on the results of their measurement and analysis of tracking data from one million websites. They identified 81,000 third parties, but only 123 of those are present on more than 1 percent of sites. Of that group, the top five third parties and twelve of the top twenty are Google-owned domains. “In fact,” they conclude, “Google, Facebook, and Twitter are the only third-party entities present on more than 10% of sites.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 429

Categorization

• XREF: Concentration of surveillance in a few firms parallels the concentration works in surveillance capitalism more broadly; connects to Zuboff’s earlier argument about Google as the founder of the genus. — connects to: Surveillance capitalist firms operate on a hyperscale pattern with tiny workforces. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1588; The internet’s connectedness is uneven and dominated by US and Chinese firms

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalist firms operate on a hyperscale pattern with tiny workforces. #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1588
• The internet’s connectedness is uneven and dominated by US and Chinese firms #expands (0.70)