ABSTRACT
The age of the agora – which was once a thriving marketplace and the centre of the athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the city – has given way to targeted ads. It makes little sense to ask whether the relationships that thrive in the Web-based simulated economy are an adequate substitute for traditional marketplaces, which were bound by kinship, loyalty, geography and trust. Yet the idea of the Internet as a true marketplace of ideas, or even a confessional corner, was actually quite vulnerable. As global tech giants like Google and Facebook expanded their reach across the Internet to mine, repurpose and monetize data, they have created giant networks of surveillance and tracking, which feed into localized centres of control. Convenience or no convenience – the potential for surveillance, data mining, profiling, and aggregation and targeting embedded within this technology is seemingly endless.
