data extractivism

The massive extraction of user data by private companies such as Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, often without appropriate privacy checks and protocols. This collection of data – a form of surveillance capitalism similar to the extraction of raw materials and exploitation of labour in colonised territories in the global South that enriched states and companies based in the north – is then used to sell content and advertising back to users, crippling the openness of the internet and its usefulness for building democracy and social justice. APC's concern with extractivism extends to all forms of the extractive economy that operates in the production and use of ICTs, including the extraction of raw materials and the impact of this on local communities.