Data is defined by its external storage infrastructure and profit destination

Evidence

For our very specific purposes, the concept of data cannot be separated from two essential elements: the external infrastructure in which it is stored and the profit generation for which it is destined. In short, by data we mean information flows that pass from human life in all its forms to infrastructures for collection and processing. This is the starting point for generating profit from data. In this sense, data abstracts life by converting it into information that can be stored and processed by computers and appropriates life by converting it into value for a third party. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 31

Categorization

• DEFINE: Precise scope: data is not any recorded information but flows destined for collection infrastructures and profit — a deliberately narrow, contestable definition.
• XREF: This definitional narrowness is what distinguishes data colonialism from the broader attention/surveillance frames; the storage-and-profit criterion is the crux of the divergence. — connects to: Colonized countries feed raw data into a value chain whose profits accrue to colonizers — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 333; Renting cloud infrastructure yields data extraction alongside rental income — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 60; Data colonialism extracts human life as data for profit through data relations. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 32 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Where does this definition leave non-profit data uses — public-interest data, civic data trusts? The definition seems to categorize those out by construction, which may be a contested scope worth probing.

Broader Connections

• Colonized countries feed raw data into a value chain whose profits accrue to colonizers #expands (0.82) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 333
• Data colonialism extracts human life as data for profit through data relations. #expands (0.80) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 32
• Renting cloud infrastructure yields data extraction alongside rental income #expands (0.78) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 60
• Platform profit comes from commodifying user data by-products rather than selling ads #expands (0.75) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 40