| Sumario: | Surveillance capitalists dispossess data on a massive scale to extract surplus value. While pioneers such as Google entered uncharted territory when they established their data supply routes, latecomers to surveillance capitalism, among them many born-analog firms, face the challenge of building such routes in an environment that is far more hostile to maneuvers of data dispossession. This article presents a case study of how the born-analog firm Bosch attempts to build data supply routes and transform itself into a surveillance capitalist. It contributes to existing research on how surveillance capitalists ensure legitimacy for their large-scale data dispossession. It investigates a case with less-considered characteristics--a born-analog (not born-digital) firm from Germany (not the United States) targeting consumers (not policy makers or journalists)--and, thus, adds heterogeneity to the studied cases. This study finds that Bosch employs strategies of seductive surveillance and privacy washing that aim to make the processes of data dispossession invisible.
|
|---|