Self-regulation became entrenched policy just as the internet and surveillance capitalism were emerging

Evidence

Short found several suggested remedies for “coercive” governmental regulation in the literature, but the most salient, especially after 1996—the very years when digital technology and the internet were becoming mainstream—was “self-regulation.” The idea here is that firms set their own standards, monitor their own compliance with those standards, and even judge their own conduct in order to “voluntarily report and remediate violations.” By the time of Google’s public offering in 2004, self-regulation was fully enshrined within government and across the business community as the single most effective tool for regulation without coercion and the antidote to any inclination toward collectivism and the centralization of power. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 347

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines self-regulation as the specific mechanism by which firms set, monitor, and judge their own compliance.
• XREF: connects to: Institutionalization made surveillance capitalism’s practices appear necessary and inevitable — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 388

Broader Connections

• Institutionalization made surveillance capitalism’s practices appear necessary and inevitable #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 388