Surveillance in the Digital Enclosure

Popular portrayals of ubiquitous computing downplay the surveillance implications of emerging forms of networked interactivity. This essay supplements such accounts by analyzing interactive spaces as digital enclosures which restrict access to the means of interaction to those who “freely” submit to the detailed forms of monitoring that take place within them. It supplements privacy-based critiques of surveillance with questions about the ownership and control of such data and the implications of this control for networked communication.