Public policies designed to regulate the use of information technology to protect personal data have been based on different theoretical assumptions in different states, depending on whether the problem is defined in technological, civil libertarian, or bureaucratic terms. However, the rapid development, dispersal, and decentralization of information technology have facilitated a range of new surveillance practices that have in turn rendered the approaches of the 1960s and 1970s obsolete. The networking of the postindustrial state will require a reconceptualization of the (...) dynamic relationship between organizational practices and information technology and a more comprehensive appreciation of the privacy problem. With the call for the development of a more coherent information policy in a number of countries, there is evidence that policymakers have been taking this more holistic view. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of whetherpersonal surveillance on the world wide web isdifferent in nature and intensity from that inthe offline world. The article presents aprofile of the ways in which privacy problemswere framed and addressed in the 1970s and1990s. Based on an analysis of privacy newsstories from 1999–2000, it then presents atypology of the kinds of surveillance practicesthat have emerged as a result of Internetcommunications. Five practices are discussedand illustrated: surveillance by glitch,surveillance by default, surveillance bydesign, surveillance by (...) possession, andsurveillance by subject. The article offerssome tentative conclusions about theprogressive latency of tracking devices, aboutthe complexity created by multi-sourcing, aboutthe robustness of clickstream data, and aboutthe erosion of the distinction between themonitor and the monitored. These trendsemphasize the need to reject analysis thatframes our understanding of Internetsurveillance in terms of its impact onsociety. Rather the Internet should beregarded as a form of life whose evolvingstructure becomes embedded in humanconsciousness and social practice, and whosearchitecture embodies an inherent valence thatis gradually shifting away from the assumptionsof anonymity upon which the Internet wasoriginally designed. (shrink)