The Google Street View Surveillance Machine

It is a fact that Google has while taking panorama photographs of streets in cities all over the world (in 34 countries) for its Street View application also collected information about wireless networks and data from open wireless networks that are not password-secured. Maybe it is time to stop talking about corporate social responsibility and to start focusing on the analysis, exposure, and investigation of corporate social irresponsibility.

There is nothing really new about Facebook’s “new privacy model”

Concerning economic surveillance and the privacy threats posed by it, nothing has changed on Facebook. So there are no reasons to celebrate Facebook’s ”new privacy model“.

The role of Internet and ICT policies in the UK after the 2010 election: does it make a difference for the role of the Internet in British society if there will be a Labour-Lib Dem or a Conservative-Lib Dem government?

Will there be changes in Internet and ICT politics and policies after the 2010 elections for the Westminster parliament? Willit in this context make a difference if there will be a Tory-LibDem government or a Labour-LibDem government? The election manifestos of the three parties give us an idea of what to expect for the near future for UK Internet politics.

New Paper: Christian Fuchs: Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet

The article explains foundations of critical political economy, especially the cycle of capital accumulation, and argues that this approach is suited for explaining and analyzing the contemporary information economy, knowledge labor, and the Internet economy. The notions of class and surplus value are applied to knowledge labour and Internet usage. Based on Dallas Smythe’s notion of the audience commodity, the concept of the Internet produsage/prosumer commodity is worked out.