Profiling phorm: An autopoietic approach to the audience-as-commodity

Abstract

As advertisers’ media spend on online advertising continues to increase, there exists a need to update the means by which we understand and critique advertising. Reliance on textual analysis and visuality is of little use in a milieu increasingly predicated on technics and surveillance. A post-hegemonic critique is advanced here that argues for a stronger understanding of feedback relations and the means by which we as users contribute to heterogeneous advertising experiences. This paper progresses and updates Dallas Smythe’s (1977) audience-as-commodity argument. It examines developments in online behavioural advertising that employs deep-packet inspection (DPI), which has caused consternation to technologically savvy consumers, privacy activists and regulators. Drawing upon the case study of Phorm that received national media attention in the UK and policy-maker attention in Europe, this paper highlights key features of DPI-based advertising, non-personally identifiable profiling and their implications for contemporary commercial autopoietic feedback relationships where users themselves are a fundamental component of online behavioural advertising practices.