BTL 953 - Surveillance Capitalism

 

The Banking Tutor’s Lessons

BTL 953                                                                               27-10-2026 

Surveillance Capitalism 

Surveillance capitalism is an economic model where corporations collect, analyze, and commodify personal behavioral data to predict and influence human actions.

The concept was defined by Harvard Business School Professor Emerita Shoshana Zuboff in 2014 and explored in her 2019 book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. 

Core Mechanics 

• Behavioral Surplus: Platforms capture everyday online and offline activities—such as search history, locations, scrolling speeds, and voice patterns—treating human experience as free raw material.

 

• Behavioral Futures Markets: Companies package these data traces into predictive algorithms and sell certainty about what users will click, buy, or do next to commercial advertisers and other buyers
• Behavior Modification: The system goes beyond passive observation by designing apps, feeds, and interfaces to nudge, herd, and tune user behavior toward profitable outcomes. 

• Information Asymmetry: Digital services are marketed as "free," masking a hidden one-way mirror where users have little knowledge, consent, or control over how their data is monetized. 

Broader Impact 

• Erosion of Privacy: It shifts elemental privacy rights away from individuals and concentrates them inside corporate architectures. 

• Democratic and Social Risks: Critics warn that it undermines human autonomy, alters social contracts, and influences political landscapes. 

• State Entanglement: Private surveillance data is frequently accessed or relied upon by governments for policing, intelligence, and social control. 

Sekhar Pariti

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