Discipline and Power in the Digital Age: The Case of the US Consumer Data Broker Industry

Abstract

While many scholars have commented on the rise of consumer finance, few have sought to critically explore a largely invisible segment of this industry: the multi-billion dollar consumer data broker industry. The industry has amassed trillions of digital consumer records, or ‘big data’, that are stockpiled, analyzed, and sold. The odious under-regulation of this industry, as well as the role it plays in consumer debt and data breaches, often flies under the radar of critical social analyses. I adopt a neo-Gramscian approach to make sense of the material, historical, and social dimensions of this phenomenon. This article asks: what are the sources and nature of this industry’s power, and how does it relate to consumer debt? The analysis suggests that these systems demonstrate how financial capital can constitute certain domains of public policy.