Data Grab

The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back

By: Ulises A. Mejias, Nick Couldry

Narrated by: Laurence Dobiesz

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

If you're not paying for the product, then you are the product.

In the past, colonialism was a landgrab of natural resources, exploitative labour and private property from developing countries. It made shiny promises to modernise and civilise, but actually sought to control. It made native populations sign contracts they didn't understand, and took resources just because they were there.

Colonialism has not disappeared; it has taken a new form. In the new world order where data is the new oil, big Tech companies are grabbing our most basic natural resources - our data - exploiting our labour and connections, and repackaging our information to control our views, track our movements, record our conversations and discriminate against us. They tell us this is for our own good, to build innovation and develop new technology. But in fact every time we unthinkingly click 'Accept' on Terms and Conditions, we allow our most personal information to kept indefinitely, repackaged by big Tech companies to control and exploit us for their own profit.

This is the era of data colonialism. The new colonial landgrab is a DATAGRAB.

In this searing, cutting-edge guide, two leading global researchers and founders of the concept of data colonialism reveal how history can help us understand the emerging future - and how we can fight back.

©2024 Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

I wish that Data Grab was required reading when I was a graduate student working in the field of AI. Perspectives like these are crucial if we are to break the colonial paradigm that pervades computing disciplines (Timnit Gebru, founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute)

A blistering, vital exposure of the predatory world of data colonialism. In this vivid and passionately written book, Mejias and Couldry urge us to wake up to the invasive and extractive world of today’s Big Tech (Mike Savage, author of 'Social Class in the 21st Century')

Remarkable... Data Grab helps us understand that the historical and ongoing relations of power have extended to the realm of data, a new raw material of digital capitalism. Mejias and Couldry place us on a path to recognise, resist, and challenge these forces (Dr Ramesh Srinivasan, Professor at the UCLA Department of Information Studies and Director of UC Digital Cultures Lab)