Spaces of surveillance: Indexicality and solicitation on the internet

This article investigates the significance of the index in the process of, first, mapping and formatting the sites, spaces and words on the Internet and, second, diagnosing, tracking and soliciting users. Unlike the back‐of‐book or even hypertextual index that points to or references information to be found in a larger text, the author argues that some of the Internet's indexes actually facilitate a movement through space to other sites and pages. It is further argued that this process of jumping into other spaces’ increasingly commercial domains, facilitated by indexical technologies known as robots or spiders, often leads to the solicitation of users’ demographic and psychographic information. Lastly, it is noted that such indexical technologies are increasingly being called upon by commercial interests to automate the process of solicitation whereby the mere entry or “jump” into a site on the Internet triggers the accumulation of a user's demographic and psychographic data.