Privacy, Exploitation, and the Digital Enclosure

Abstract

Approaches to the regulation of commercial information collection in the digital era tend to ground themselves on notions of privacy and consumer choice. This essay proposes a supplementary approach that considers the generation of personal information to be a value – generating activity analogous in important respects to productive labour. It argues that regulatory regimes need to take into consideration the power relations that structure the terms of access to commercial information and communication resources. In an economy wherein the boundaries between work and other spheres of social life continue to blur, access to such resources is not merely a consumer convenience, but an increasingly important workplace asset.