Interessante il pezzo in cui sono descriti i tentiativi di applicare una legge che Google non apprezza: *MD: *I think it's even worse, because in the case of the surveillance capitalists, we already have regulations - like the copyright reform in Germany, for example. But Google essentially reacted to that by deciding that any German content producers and publishers who used that law would be delisted by Google in the text, video, photo categories, with only the headline remaining. We decided to test it, and within only two weeks, our search traffic had gone down by 85%. To state that in very clear terms: We stuck to the law and the result was a decline in our traffic. This clearly highlights our total dependence on Google, and Google's abuse of that. And what it also clearly shows is that Google is effectively in a position to overrule the rule of law, and with that the power of the market, in a country. When France introduced the European copyright reform, Google did exactly the same thing. The French publishers who made use of the law, were also delisted. This, in turn, led to most of the French publishers giving in. This is a symbolic showdown between the tech monopolists and the state governed by rule of law. Google has perhaps overstepped the mark this time. <https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-professor-shoshana-zuboff-on-big-tec...> <https://www.businessinsider.com/harvard-professor-shoshana-zuboff-on-big-tec...> *Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer*: Shoshana, the recipients of the Axel Springer Award preceding you were Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Berners-Lee and then Jeff Bezos. At least two of them play a major role in your book. And not exactly as role models. How do you feel about being in the company of such awardees? *Shoshana Zuboff, author and scholar: *Well, I welcome the realization that our digital future is at stake. In a battle, you sometimes have to take sides. We have both been on the same page about this for a long time. In 2014, I responded to your courageous open letter to Eric Schmidt, which you titled "Why we are afraid of Google". We are fighting for the same cause, as we did with our friend Frank Schirrmacher, who passed away some years ago. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and the like unfortunately have the fate of our society in their hands. *MD: *We have always said that we, as a company, and even as a society, must have a /frenemy/-relationship with these companie/s/. We admire them for the jobs they have created, the value they have generated, and the improvements they have given to society. At the same time, however, we must stay alert and criticize the dangers they bring. Your book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" is, to my mind, a work of historical importance. And I think it is going to change how our society deals with the digital Internet platforms. I get the impression that the way the platforms are perceived has changed pretty significantly over the last years, particularly over the last months. A couple of years ago, everybody was totally fascinated by the technological possibilities, the easiness of the use cases, the comfort that this brought to our daily lives. Then came Cambridge Analytica, the emergence of fake news, the rise of populism in England, in the USA, in other countries in Europe and in the world, and people started to realize that the price they have to pay may be much higher than they thought. If they just hand over their data, the principle of the surveillance economy will become the new normal. *SZ: *I think we are at a turning point. There is no question in my mind that we are at the beginning of a new phase in the development and in the history of surveillance capitalism. What we will see in this phase is the emergence of a new vision. This will see us move in the direction of asserting democratic governance over the Internet, which is perceived by the surveillance capitalists to be the last ungoverned space. *MD: *Do you see Europe playing a leadership role in developing policies to regulate the tech platforms? America has done almost nothing to date, whereas Europe has really been at the forefront in defining new rules, for example, by imposing the three big billion-plus penalties on Google. What kind of role do you see Europe playing? Or are those who argue that Europe just doesn't understand the technology right in that assertion? *SZ: *I think that the sensibilities in Germany and in Europe more generally have been quite different from those in the United States. Although, things are changing in America now. I would definitely say, however, that there is a much greater sensibility in Europe that democracy is something we have to fight for. Europe understands that democracy can be rapidly undermined by unexpected new sources of power that we didn't anticipate. There is an awareness here that democracy requires protection. That's something we're not necessarily used to in America. We've taken everything far too much for granted there. So, I think Europe has been in the vanguard since the beginning. Nevertheless, many members of the European Parliament would like to believe that our work is done now with the GDPR – the general data protection regulation – and that we can now put our feet up and pop the champagne corks. I do believe that the GDPR does, of course, represent some great breakthroughs. The fact is, however, that privacy law as we know it, and anti-trust law as we know it, will not stop an outlaw surveillance capitalism in its tracks. How Google and Facebook skirt regulations today-- and what to do about it *MD: *You are absolutely right. Speaking from the standpoint of someone who works in a digital publishing house every day, I can say that GDPR, contrary to some expectations of it, even strengthens the position of Google and Facebook in the digital advertising market. The large platforms can afford the best lawyers and, correspondingly, they can guarantee compliance with the new complex data requirements. At the same time, thanks to the wide range of online services they offer and the millions of user accounts, they can use the one-time consent given by users for their own benefit. By comparison, smaller companies in the digital advertising industry are threatened in their very existence by the new legislation. GDPR is good, but it does not solve the problems of surveillance capitalism, instead strengthening the position of its protagonists. Because, as you have written, the surveillance capitalist will always be one step ahead. *SZ: *History has shown that efforts towards regulation fail when they are not based on a detailed understanding of the industry that they are regulating. Anti-trust and privacy law were hugely creative legislative undertakings, largely in the 20th century, some more recently. But they were designed for other forms of enterprise, other market forms and problems that were structurally different to the ones we face today. *MD: *Perhaps we need agile regulation. You start a regulatory process; watch how it works, change and adapt it. In short, you act like a tech platform. They are also constantly changing their strategy, doing turnarounds and are always on the move, while a regulation takes three years of preparation. By the time a law is implemented, it's already outdated. *SZ: *Well, agile regulation would be one possibility. Another one is principle-based regulation, where the principles themselves are not agile, but the way you deal with them is. There are some very clear principles which, if the political will is there, would be quite easy to regulate and would almost overnight challenge the legitimacy of what I call the 'surveillance dividend'. At the present time, you cannot compete on the market unless you are willing to produce this surveillance dividend, that is, the gain companies pull out of user data. This dividend is directed in an unacceptable manner against freedom and democracy, and it has become a menace to society. So, if we can define principles that will essentially curb this mechanism, then we can in my opinion take a giant step towards effective regulation. In the gilded age of industrialization, we already had great entrepreneurs, who we later came to call 'robbers'. J P Morgan used to say, "We don't need law. We have the law of supply and demand. We have the law of survival of the fittest. Those are the only laws we need. Law will simply get in the way of business, of prosperity, and of innovation." And that's exactly the same message we are hearing from the surveillance capitalists today, without actually realizing it is recycled propaganda from over a century ago. [...]