The discovery of new forms of raw material is what makes the current moment distinctively colonial. If historical colonialism expanded by appropriating for exploitation geographical territory and the resources that territorial conquest could bring, data colonialism expands by appropriating for exploitation ever more layers of human life itself. … When we refer to data practices as colonizing human life, we refer to the appropriation of data, potentially for profit, in any and all of these areas. But we also intend the term human life to refer to the as-yet-still-open horizon of exploitation over which data colonialism claims future rights: as ever more of our activities and even inner thoughts occur in contexts in which they automatically are made ready for appropriation as data, there is, in principle, no limit to how much of human life can be appropriated and exploited.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 66