Ashley Chen

Professor Maggie

CTW 2

May 20, 2020

More Than What Meets the Eye: Data Surveillance, The Most Valuable Commodity

When a website asks if you agree to the usage of computer cookies, most of us just

tediously click “ok” thinking it is inherently harmless, however, this is not the case. While

cookies themselves do not hold the ability to dig and research your personal information, it can

store your data and track your online behavior which is an example of the internet’s ongoing and

fundamental failings when it comes to online privacy. Thus, leading to the overarching issue of

the matter: data surveillance. Data surveillance is a targeted form of monitoring, usually

conducted to obtain specific data or evidence and usually occurs without the person knowing.

Many companies, as well as social media platforms, are created in ways for mass storage of

personal data that is evaluated through advertising which is quite frightening because consumers

do not necessarily know that their data is being sold to third-party brokers. This raises the debate

of the trade-off between improved customer experience and personal privacy. In order to

examine the issues of data surveillance and their negative impacts on data privacy, in addition to

how it is being dealt with and regulated by the government, this paper uses communication

research from experts on social media and data mining. Throughout this paper, I unveil the extent

to which digital technologies have captured and sold a wide array of data about an individual’s

habits, preferences, prejudices, and personalities. Furthermore, I argue that because of the lack of

transparency by the company, people are unaware of the amount of data they have consented to
supply to data brokers. It is an invasion of the user’s privacy which makes these practices

ethically questionable. With this in mind, I will provide a technological background of how data

surveillance came to be and how the value of data has shifted as a result of economic

competition and demand for power. Knowledge of data surveillance is crucial as it has the

capacity to sway an individual’s opinions and can ultimately affect wide-scale occasions as big

as the presidential elections which is one of the examples covered throughout this paper. By

examining the deregulation of data surveillance, this paper will demonstrate the importance of

government intervention and business to consumer transparency.

The three main components that have paved the way for data surveillance is

technological change, societal shifts, and circumstantial discontinuities. In an age of advanced

technology, that progress has brought us many conveniences and advantages, however, it has also

resulted in the headway of data surveillance which can include tactics such as imaging devices,

location-tracking technologies, keystroke loggers, communications eavesdropping systems, and

many other means of collecting data on an individual’s behavior and activities that allow

unwarranted intrusions into people’s personal lives. These strategies of data mining which

compromise privacy can be found in many online practices of business and government

agencies. For instance, with the rise of e-commerce, these technologies have created the ability

to make a wide range of personal information available to anyone with access to the internet.

People’s data is needed for artificial intelligence algorithms, and with many different entities

wanting to gain power they are dependent on collecting vast quantities of data. To provide a

historical perspective on online privacy in America, author of “None of Your Damn Business:

Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age,” and a professor of
constitutional history at the University of Alabama, Lawrence Cappello, talks about how shifts in

technology have caused the shift between physical surveillance to data surveillance, “Although

technology developed in the nineteenth century, of course, it wasn’t until the twentieth century

that the fragile balance that the framers had struck between privacy and surveillance was

threatened” (Capello). Previously, surveillance referred to active observation of people for

commercial reasons but those being monitored were aware they were being watched and

analyzed, whereas, data surveillance is a targeted form of monitoring that is conducted to obtain

specific data usually without a person’s knowledge that such personal information is being

collected. This has been further discussed in “Internet and Surveillance The Challenges of Web

2.0 and Social Media.” by Christian Fuchs et al., professors from various universities around the

United Kingdom, as well as authors of many books about the implications of social media.

They convey how privacy is a growing concern around the world due to the rise of the internet

allowing the ability to collect, save, and share online which have shifted aspects of transparency,

“In traditional surveillance, “what the surveillant knows, the subject probably knows as well”,

whereas in the new surveillance the “surveillant knows things the subject doesn’t” (1, Fuchs).

Today, most users are unaware that companies are invading our privacy online and collecting

detailed information in order to build profiles to sell to the highest bidder, “hundreds of millions

of Americans and selling copies of that dataset to anyone who can pay the price” said the

Editorial board from New York Times. Data has become one of the most valuable commodities

which puts data collection in most companies' best interests in order to gain money and power,

even if it means taking the data without their user’s knowing.

 With more of our lives moving online, there is more motivation to access personal data to

help navigate through economic competition and world crisis, nonetheless, data surveillance is a

double-edged sword with many benefits and risks. With that said, data surveillance is a necessary

tool for companies and the government to improve platforms and also a way to employ social

conformity. Many companies are using data mining tools with a strong consumer focus in order

to streamline retail, marketing and communication functions. It can also help companies

understand customer preferences and thus better predict future buying behaviors. Companies

construct models of buying behavior from purchasing history which helps them perceive trends,

preferences, and needs of customers so the company is able to create an overall better customer

experience. In addition, companies can analyze data collected from customer behavior to get

meaningful insights on how to increase satisfaction level which in turn, can create customer

loyalty and build stronger relationships with the brand and the consumer. Data mining can also

be used to create targeted ads which can be an effective tool to help retailers reach the right

audience and make online users feel like they have a more personalized web searching

experience. “Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing.” delves deeper on other ways data

surveillance is benefitted, drawing observations and interviews within the Los Angeles Police

Department conducted by Sarah Brayne, a Professor of Sociology at The University of Texas at

Austin. In the academic journal, she argues that, “the adoption of big data analytics facilitates

amplifications of prior surveillance practices and fundamental transformations in surveillance

activities” (Brayne). In this case, data is used for predictive, rather than reactive purposes.

Especially because systematic data systems make it possible for the department to foresee

actions of unprecedented large numbers of people. Big data surveillance can be applied to
institutional domains beyond social media platforms and retail companies, showing that the

collection of users’ data can be used as a tool and not just a weapon.

Data mining has raised a number of concerns in America because it has the potential to

change almost every aspect of modern life with the power to track and analyze everything. We

have only scratched the surface of the data it is possible to collect about our lives, our businesses,

our environment, our behaviors. In “Social Media as Surveillance: Rethinking Visibility in a

Converging World,” Daniel Trottier, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Digital Media at the

Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) says that, “Users are exposed in ways

that cause immediate shock and embarrassment, but this visibility is multi-faceted, with

long-term consequences that users do not anticipate” (9, Trottier). This emphasizes the fact the

people are unaware that their data is being taken and believe that data mining and targeted ads

are improving their online experience. For instance when consumers click the “okay” button on

privacy terms, they do not actually read them and are allowing an invasion of their privacy

online. Or another example of how most browsers allow you to opt out of online behavioral

advertising and refuse the usage of cookies, however, they do not actually prevent tracking.

Companies still have the power to collect data then from there decide what to do with that

information. As stated in, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at

the New Frontier of Power,” Shoshana Zuboff, a professor at Harvard University, says that

“through ‘instrumentarian’ methods that are designed to cultivate ‘radical indifference, a form of

observation without witness” (379 Zuboff). This means that companies are aware that they do

not have your consent to retrieve your personal information but they want to capitalize on it so

they use certain methods and techniques that are designed to create a facade as benign ads or
surveys. Large firms that implores these methods would be platforms such as Facebook and

Google that have monopolized their industries so many users have no choice but to surrender

their data in order to use their platforms. For example, as stated in the New York Times, in 2017

Facebook profited $40 billion and user data played a huge role in the company’s profits. Majority

of the profits were a result of advertising which came out to be 89% of the revenue, but keep in

mind that advertising is largely driven by user data. Businesses that want to advertise can pay

Facebook to give them access to their data mining of user information so they can put ads

in front of people that are most likely to respond to them, or their targeted audience. Facebook

claims that the information being taken is anonymous, but the New York Times revealed that,

Facebook sold data sets which included users' contact information, private messages, and friend

lists to large tech companies such as Netflix, Microsoft, and Amazon. This is an example that

highlights just how valuable data is in our society today, as well as how dangerous the power of

data mining holds.

The rise of social media represents a major shift in how information is being produced,

transferred, and consumed, so it is important to analyze the mechanisms and techniques implored

by social media outlets in order to gain insight on to what extent they are gathering user’s data.

The user’s content created on platforms such as blog posts, comments, and photos establish the

connection between the producers of data and the consumers of their information. Tracking the

social patterns and behavior, essentially the pulse of social media platforms, allows companies to

gain insight on how to improve their products and services. This brings about the term “big data”

which is a way to analyze and systematically extract information from large data sets. In the

research paper, “Social Media Data Mining and Analytics, Gabor Szabo, et al., software
engineers at big companies such as Tesla, Twitter, and LinkedIn who have studied the mechanics

of data mining and analytics, discuss how big data is a way for companies to retrieve a mass

amount of data and capitalize on it, “Social media is the biggest source of Big Data, 90% of

Fortune 500 companies are investing in Big Data initiatives that will help them predict consumer

behavior to produce better sales results” (205, Szabo). With so many companies with large user

engagement, it is important to answer the question of what data these firms are taking to further

investigate if there is an ethical concern of people’s privacy rights.

When companies analyze data they must categorize the mass amounts of information

they receive on their platform in order to organize and leverage the data. Hai Liang, a researcher

at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, reveals that “In general, three kinds of data are

available for harvest on social media platforms” (2 Liang). The first type is content data which is

the user's comments, profiles, in addition to photos and videos shared. Most data on social media

is unstructured in the original form so researchers need to use text mining techniques to

preprocess raw texts and use image and video processing techniques to preprocess photos and

videos for further analyses. The second type is behavior data where user’s daily behaviors are

recorded on social media with precise timestamps. For instance, when someone decides to read

an online news article, or when someone wants to listen to music, the time of day they decide to

do so is recorded in order to analyze human behaviors and social patterns. Online behaviors can

be classified into three categories: “User–entity behavior,” “User-community behavior,”and

“User-user behavior” (2 Liang). The first type of data, User-entity behavior refers to the

interaction between a user and an entity in social media, such as sharing a news article on

Facebook. This data is very useful for communication scholars because it is directly related to
media use and audience analysis in traditional communication research. User–community

behavior refers to the interaction between a user and an online community, such as participating

in a discussion forum. User–user behavior refers to the interaction between two individual users,

such as sending private messages. Structural Data is the last type of data that pertains to people’s

networks and has to do with visual or hidden hyperlinks among user’s and their content. With the

knowledge of how data is being organized and categorized it gives us a sense of how companies

are extracting data as well as what information they are taking, but most importantly what is the

most valuable type of data they need to leverage user’s behaviors on their platforms.

Many strides in computer technology and data analysis have caused a global expansion of

data surveillance where platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have been major exploiters of

collecting data in order to then change their platforms to entice users towards certain products

and services that demand immediate consumption and acceptance. With the power of data, it has

been shown that companies have the power to sway presidential elections. A data collection firm

called Cambridge Analytica used its database to manipulate a certain cross-section of people,

“the persuadables” in order to sway the presidential election, “Details of Cambridge’s acquisition

and use of Facebook data have surfaced in several accounts since the business began working on

the 2016 campaign, setting off a furious debate about the merits of the firm’s so-called

psychographic modeling techniques” (Rosenberg, et al.). The collected data was used to create

fear and apathy towards users through social media platforms in order to achieve the goals of the

political parties that hired them. The former director of Cambridge Analytica has been accused

of illegally collecting the online data of up to 50 million Facebook users which garnered insights

of voters' habits and profiles which allowed for the company to help sway the presidential
election of 2016 by boosting Donald Trump's campaign. Furthermore, Cambridge Analytica

likely breached the U.K.'s strict campaign financing laws and may have helped to sway the final

Brexit outcome by providing analysis for the Vote Leave campaign ahead of the 2016 Brexit

referendum. This a real-life example of when data surveillance was utilized. By acknowledging

such a full-scale example such as a presidential election, it emphasizes the fact that data mining

is very impactful and can give people the power to influence and sway others. This will also give

a clear application to who is collecting our data and what they are using it for. It shows that more

regulations need to be instilled to keep the integrity of our democracy. This further emphasizes

concepts such as how the threats to privacy are evolving and how our must privacy be protected.

Government regulators are still finding ways to balance the interests of individuals, businesses

and government in ways that promote privacy reasonably and effectively

People are continually rendered as profits for large companies and the data is being taken

is far more than what users consented to which emphasizes an unethical problem that should be

met with government intervention and regulations. While many jurisdictions like Canada and the

EU have had privacy laws instilled that date back to the mid-1990s, advances in technology and

changes in data practices have motivated governments to update existing laws. Specifically, the

US is considering new legislation on both state and federal levels. For instance, a recent law

regarding state data privacy regulation would be the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

which took effect on January 1st of 2020, ensures regulation of data collection, management, and

how it is being shared and sold by companies. The CCPA also requires businesses to inform

consumers about the types of personal data they will collect and the information will be used.

This provides transparency between the companies and the consumer. Along with the ability,
users have to question how their data will be used and to whom it will be shared, they also have

the right to opt-out of their data being sold.“The new privacy law is a big win for data privacy,”

says Joseph Turow, a privacy scholar and professor of communication at the Annenberg School

for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania who was quoted in an online business

journal, Knowledge@Wharton. However, this is only state law, so there should be overarching

federal regulation protecting consumer information as well. According to the NYU Journal of

Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law, a number of US states have already passed or are

actively considering privacy legislation which will in turn, prompt change on the federal

government level.

New developments in technologies have made it easy for corporations and government

entities to analyze our online activities and collect that information for a profitable gain. With the

lack of much needed government regulations and our daily lives moving online, these intrusions

have devastating implications for our right to privacy. Although, more than just online behavior

is being monitored, with many new tools and techniques being implored by companies they are

able to track our location, everything we have said, find our friends and family, know our

religious beliefs, sexuality, and political views. Social media platforms have aided the means of

data mining by enabling the ability to see how people interact with each other, how they

consume and produce content, and what kinds of connections they form with others while doing

so. A study conducted by Pew Research Center of 4,272 U.S. adults in 2019 found that many

Americans feel that their data is being collected and it will cause more risks than benefits. Also,

when comparing their online security now to five years ago when technology was less advanced

they feel that there is personal information and privacy is far less secure, “Seven-in-ten
Americans say they feel their personal information is less secure than it was five years ago”

(Auxier and Rainie). In addition, many Americans feel that their offline and online activities on

their cellphones are being tracked by both companies and the government, thus leading many

people to believe that it is not impossible to go about their daily lives without their data being

collected. Other findings reveal that a majority of U.S. adults have heard at least a little about

how companies and other organizations use their data to target them with ads, however, very few

Americans believe they understand what is being done with the data collected about them. This

shows that digital technologies have captured and sold a wide array of data about individual’s

habits, preferences, prejudices, and personalities and slowly more and more people are starting to

learn about the breach of privacy data surveillance is and be weary of things such as targeted ads

and cookies. Consumers are still not aware of just how much data they have provided to data

brokers so we must have more protection for our data. If regulations are not instilled, companies

will continue to compete over who can collect the most consumer data the most intrusively, and

who can sell it at the highest price. This reveals the dark side of our 21st century innovations that

are supposed to improve our lives and connect us. It has been made clear that Americans feel that

their private information is vulnerable online so it is of the responsibility of the government to

enforce laws that protect data privacy. There have been some recent laws that have been enacted

such as the California Consumer Privacy Act but the government is taking a reactive stance

rather than being proactive in making the internet a safer place.

 Work Cited

● Liang, Hai and Jonathan Zhu. "Big Data, Collection of (Social Media, Harvesting)" in:

The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. John Wiley &

Sons, Inc, 2017.

● Auxier, Brooke, and Lee Rainie. “Key Takeaways on Americans' Views about Privacy,

Surveillance and Data-Sharing.” Pew Research Center, 15 Nov. 2019,

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/15/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-about-pr

ivacy-surveillance-and-data-sharing/

● Brayne, Sarah. “Big Data Surveillance: The Case of Policing.” The Cambridge Handbook

of Policing in the United States, Apr. 2019.

● C, K.N. “Surveillance Is a Fact of Life, so Make Privacy a Human Right.” The

Economist, 13 Dec. 2019,

www.economist.com/open-future/2019/12/13/surveillance-is-a-fact-of-life-so-make-priva

cy-a-human-right.

● Fuchs, Christian, et al. Internet and Surveillance The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social

Media. Taylor and Francis, 2013.

● Knowledge@Wharton “Your Data Is Shared and Sold...What's Being Done About It?”

Knowledge@Wharton, 28 Oct. 2019,

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/data-shared-sold-whats-done/.

● Rosenberg, Matthew, et al. “How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of

Millions.” The New York Times, 17 Mar. 2018,

www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html.
● Szabó Gábor, et al. Social Media Data Mining and Analytics. John Wiley & Sons, 2019.

● The Editorial Board. “Total Surveillance Is Not What America Signed Up For.” The New

York Times, 22 Dec. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/21/opinion/location-data-privacy-rights.html.

● Trottier, Daniel. Social Media As Surveillance: Rethinking Visibility in a Converging

World. Ashgate Publishing Group, 2012.

● Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at

the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, 2020.