Data colonialism is, in essence, an emerging order for the appropriation of human life so that data can be continuously extracted from it for profit. This extraction is operationalized via data relations, ways of interacting with each other and with the world facilitated by digital tools. Through data relations, human life is not only annexed to capitalism but also becomes subject to continuous monitoring and surveillance. The result is to undermine the autonomy of human life in a fundamental way that threatens the very basis of freedom, which is exactly the value that advocates of capitalism extol. … These fundamental transformations of human life have dramatic consequences for the social world too. They enable what we call social caching, a new form of knowledge about the social world based on the capture of personal data and its storage for later profitable use. As social relations are thus transformed, we see the emergence of the Cloud Empire, a totalizing vision and organization of business in which the dispossession of data colonialism has been naturalized and extended across all social domains.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 32