“A surveillance-oriented internet was not inevitable. As Matthew Crain brilliantly documents, the data-obsessed web was manifested to appease and uphold the advertising beast. By untangling the historic strings of policy, politics, and financial interests, Profit over Privacy invites the reader to question why we’ve come to accept the panoptic internet we know today.”—danah boyd, author of It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

“In this exceptionally insightful and important book, Matthew Crain presents a definitive history of the evisceration of internet privacy. Rooted in a deep understanding of the history of advertising markets and the political economy of finance, Profit over Privacy focuses readers’ attention on the fundamental forces demanding ever more data about our lives. Although it tells a dark story, its accessible and lively prose makes it a pleasure to read—and provides the historical knowledge necessary to help future regulators avoid the many mistakes of the past.”—Frank Pasquale, author of New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI

“The book provides a fascinating look at the way that commercial and private interests and the companies and lobbyists representing them won out over other interests, such as public ownership and public interests, in a number of debates and processes largely in the United States that created the global internet infrastructure  we have now […] Anyone interested in online and digital spaces, surveillance practices, the history of internet companies, and discussions of public policy in the internet age should want to read Profit Over Privacy.” —Surveillance Society

“Revealing the emergence of a market logic that has placed individual surveillance at its core, this is a forceful and engaging book.”—LSE Review of Books

“[Crain’s] writing skills, including his ability to make the sociopolitical complexities of political economy accessible and engaging for a broad audience, from undergraduates to business executives, are most impressive.”—International Journal of Communication

“Brilliantly researched and thoroughly documented, the book argues that surveillance capitalism could not have existed outside of politics.”—Technical Communication

“In documenting the historical development of surveillance advertising, Crain makes a forceful argument against the status quo in favor of strong privacy laws.”—College Research Libraries

Matthew Crain is assistant professor of media and communication at Miami University.