Surveillance capitalism expanded from online advertising to offline bodily and financial life

Evidence

Surveillance capitalism is no longer confined to the competitive dramas of the large internet companies, where behavioral futures markets were first aimed at online advertising. Its mechanisms and economic imperatives have become the default model for most internet-based businesses. Eventually, competitive pressure drove expansion into the offline world, where the same foundational mechanisms that expropriate your online browsing, likes, and clicks are trained on your run in the park, breakfast conversation, or hunt for a parking space. Today’s prediction products are traded in behavioral futures markets that extend beyond targeted online ads to many other sectors, including insurance, retail, finance, and an ever-widening range of goods and services companies determined to participate in these new and profitable markets. Whether it’s a “smart” home device, what the insurance companies call “behavioral underwriting,” or any one of thousands of other transactions, we now pay for our own domination. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 42

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘behavioral futures markets’ and ‘behavioral underwriting’ as the operative terms for surveillance capitalism’s expansion beyond advertising.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exact mechanisms pressured expansion offline, and how did insurance adopt behavioral underwriting as a category?
• XREF: connects to: Surveillance capitalism is expanding from online ads into real-world behavioral futures markets. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 676; Surveillance capitalism is expanding from the web into everyday life — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 806; Targeted advertising was foundational to surveillance capitalism’s origins — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 202 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Targeted advertising was foundational to surveillance capitalism’s origins #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 202
• Surveillance capitalism’s first move is seizing behavioral surplus from everyday life #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 437
• Surveillance capitalism moves from predicting behavior to actively shaping it in real time #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 481