Surveillance Capitalism
Companies whose business model involves deploying behavioral surveillance against their own users, customers, or subjects — extracting behavioral data, building prediction products, and monetizing them without meaningful consent. Covers surveillance capitalism (Zuboff) platforms (search, social, adtech, data brokers) and any actor that turns its own user relationship into a surveillance apparatus for commercial gain. Includes: ad-tech behavioral profiling, data brokerage, identity resolution, and financial behavioral analytics. Distinct from surveillance_tech, which covers manufacturers and vendors of surveillance tools.
Excluded Companies (15 total)
Showing 12 of 15 companies excluded under this screen.
| Ticker | Company | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| ADBE | Adobe Inc | While Adobe markets its Firefly AI as being trained exclusively on "licensed and public domain" data to avoid copyright infringement, investigative reports (Bloomberg/Symbio6) revealed that Adobe util... |
| AMZN | Amazon.com, Inc. | FTC $2.5B consumer protection enforcement (2025) — Amazon charged with systematically deceiving consumers through dark patterns, fake discounts, and unauthorized Prime enrollment. |
| COR | CENCORA INC | In August 2025, Cencora and its subsidiary The Lash Group agreed to a $40 million class-action settlement following a February 2024 cyberattack. The breach exfiltrated the data of over 1.43 million in... |
| CRTO | Criteo SA | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): Criteo SA — behavioral retargeting using commerce transaction data; Privacy International GDPR complaint (Nov 2018) for building intricate consumer behavioral profile... |
| EFX | EQUIFAX INC | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): Equifax — Financial Marketing Services segment uses consumer financial behavior (credit, income, spending activity, net worth) for client targeting and segmentation; ... |
| GOOGL | Alphabet Inc. | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): Alphabet — pioneered behavioral data extraction 2000-2001; Search, Maps, YouTube, Android as behavioral surveillance infrastructure; sells prediction products to adve... |
| META | Meta Platforms, Inc. | The company has broken records around the world for data privacy fines. Ireland's Data Privacy Commission assessed a $1.2 billion fine for transferring European users' data to the United States, which... |
| PINS | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): Pinterest — visual intent data sold as prediction products; 500M+ users' shopping and interest behavior monetized for advertiser targeting and behavioral modification | |
| RAMP | LiveRamp Holdings Inc | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): LiveRamp/Acxiom — pure-play data broker; core business is packaging 2.5B+ consumer behavioral profiles for sale without individual consent |
| SNAP | Snapchat | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): Snap Inc — persistent location tracking, demographic profiling of young users, AR/Lens behavioral data collection; Snap Audience Network enables behavioral ad targeti... |
| TRU | TransUnion | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): TransUnion — credit bureau with TruAudience marketing data division; acquired Neustar for $3.1B (Dec 2021) adding identity resolution and behavioral targeting to cred... |
| TTD | The Trade Desk Inc | Surveillance capitalism (Zuboff): The Trade Desk — programmatic advertising DSP; revenue model = trading behavioral futures derived from pervasive tracking of users across the open web |
The Naughty List
A digest of changes to our exclusion list — new additions, removals, and the evidence behind them. We review the list continuously as new evidence surfaces.