Introduction

This introduction chapter presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book concisely presents the property-privacy relations in informational capitalism that it describes as commodification. It advocates and expands upon two main theses: First, people's privacy is structurally invaded in contemporary informational capitalism. And second, the best response to this problem is not accomplished by invoking the privacy framework as it stands. Additionally the book grounds the theoretical discussion about the commodification of privacy in qualitative empirical research about social media users' attitudes towards privacy and surveillance issues. It concentrates on the economic aspects of surveillance and speaks about the commodification of privacy in informational capitalism, which simultaneously excludes a detailed analysis of the state from the investigation. The concept of ideology, which is used to analyse the idea of privacy in capitalism, has affinities to the role of the state in capitalism.