This process works even better on the Internet because of the latter's interactive nature. "The Internet is a dream to direct marketers", said Wil Lansing, CEO of the American retailer
Many web sites also are equipped with
One frequent way of obtaining such personal information of a user is by offering free web mail accounts offered by a great many companies, internet providers and web portals (e.g.
However, the intention of collecting users personal data and create consumer profiles based on online behaviour can also take on more creative and playful forms. One such example is
The particular way in which sites such as sixdegrees.com and others are structured mean that not only to users provide initial information about them, but also that this information is constantly updated and therefore becomes even more valuable. Consequently, many free online services or web mail providers cancel a user's account if it has not been uses for some time.
There are also other online services which offer free services in return for personal information which is then used for marketing purposes, e.g. Yahoo's
A further way of collecting consumer data that has recently become popular is by offering free PCs. Users are provided with a PC for free or for very little money, and in return commit themselves to using certain services rather than others (e.g. a particular internet provider), providing information about themselves, and agree to have their online behaviour monitored by the company providing the PC, so that accurate user profiles can be compiled. For example, the
A good inside view of the world of direct marketing can be gained at the website of the
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- Education files, insurance files, tax files, communication files, consumption files, medical files, travel files, criminal files, investment files, files into infinity ...
Critical Art Ensemble
Global data bodies
1. Introduction
Informatisation has meant that things that once were "real", i.e. whose existence could be experienced sensually, are becoming virtual. Instead of the real existence of a thing, the virtual refers to its possibility of existence. As this process advances, an increasing identification of the possible with the real occurs. Reality migrates into a dim and dematerialised grey area. In the end, the possible counts for the real, virtualisation creates an "as-if" experience.
The experience of the body is also affected by this process. For example, in bio-technology, the human body and its functions are digitised, which prepares and understanding of the body exlusively in terms of its potential manipulation, the body becomes whatever it could be. But digitisation has not only affected the understanding and the social significance of the body, it has also altered the meaning of presence, traditionally identified with the body. The advance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has meant that for an increasing number of activities we no longer need be physically present, our "virtual" presence, achieved by logging onto a electronic information network, is sufficient.
This development, trumpeted as the pinnacle of convenience by the ICT industries and governments interested in attracting investment, has deeply problematic aspects as well. For example, when it is no longer "necessary" to be physically present, it may soon no longer be possible or allowed. Online-banking, offered to customers as a convenience, is also serves as a justification for charging higher fees from those unwilling or unable to add banking to their household chores. Online public administration may be expected to lead to similar effects. The reason for this is that the digitalisation of the economy relies on the production of surplus data. Data has become the most important raw material of modern economies.
In modern economies, informatisation and virtualisation mean that people are structurally forced to carry out their business and life their lives in such a way as to generate data.
Data are the most important resource for the New Economy. By contrast, activities which do not leave behind a trace of data, as for example growing your own carrots or paying cash rather than by plastic card, are discouraged and structurally suppressed.
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The result of this informatisation is the creation of a virtual body which is the exterior of a man or woman's social existence. It plays the same role that the physical body, except located in virtual space (it has no real location). The virtual body holds a certain emancipatory potential. It allows us to go to places and to do things which in the physical world would be impossible. It does not have the weight of the physical body, and is less conditioned by physical laws. It therefore allows one to create an identity of one's own, with much less restrictions than would apply in the physical world.
But this new freedom has a price. In the shadow of virtualisation, the data body has emerged. The data body is a virtual body which is composed of the files connected to an individual. As the
The virtual character of the data body means that social regulation that applies to the real body is absent. While there are limits to the manipulation and exploitation of the real body (even if these limits are not respected everywhere), there is little regulation concerning the manipulation and exploitation of the data body, although the manipulation of the data body is much easier to perform than that of the real body. The seizure of the data body from outside the concerned individual is often undetected as it has become part of the basic structure of an informatised society. But data bodies serve as raw material for the "New Economy". Both business and governments claim access to data bodies. Power can be exercised, and democratic decision-taking procedures bypassed by seizing data bodies. This totalitarian potential of the data body makes the data body a deeply problematic phenomenon that calls for an understanding of data as social construction rather than as something representative of an objective reality. How data bodies are generated, what happens to them and who has control over them is therefore a highly relevant political question.
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Critical Art Ensemble is a collective of five artists of various specializations dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory. CAE have published a number of books and carried out innovative art projects containing insightful and ironic theoretical contributions to media art. Projects include Addictionmania, Useless Technology, The Therapeutic State, Diseases of Consciousness, Machineworld, As Above So Below, and
http://www.critical-art.net