The behavior economy: The creation of behavior as an object of online surveillance

Abstract

While it’s well known that behavior is the target of systems of online surveillance, explanations of what behavior actually is are much harder to come by. This article provides a brief account of behavior’s twentieth century appearance and journey to a position of centrality in common-sense understandings of who we are. Given that traditional understandings of the right to privacy and self-determination are founded on a liberal humanist understanding of the subject, dominant critiques of online surveillance are seriously compromised by the fact that behavior cannot, strictly speaking, be accommodated within this intellectual framework.