Book recommendation: The Age Of Surveillance Capitalism by ShoShana Zuboff

If we are not very careful, historians will one day look back at our times, wondering how easily we were prepared to sacrifice our liberty in the name of technological progress, and how easy it was for big business to compromise the make-up of our democratic societies. Indeed, the trend is clearly pointing in this direction, and it is hardly possible anymore to opt out of what

Shoshana Zuboff

Calls surveillance capitalism. In

this podcast

She talks about her book

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism

And tries to alert us to the dangers of a newly emerging corporate power structure which thrives on a morally reprehensible business model which eventually may put our societies at risk of becoming less democratic if not outright authoritarian. Needless to say that her book has made it to the top of my personal reading list as has

Zucked: Waking Up To the Facebook Catastrophe

by

Roger McNamee

, and he can be heard reflecting on his time at Facebook

here.If people of such caliber will not succeed in opening our eyes to what is taking shape right in front of us, I really don’t know what or who will. For more coverage of issues relating to digital technology on this blog, check out

this

And for more coverage read

this

And

this

and

this

and

this one as well.