In what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze labelled Control Societies, mechanisms reminiscent of censorship – that is, restriction of information that administrators of power wish to regulate the spreading of – are present in the concept of copyright. This kind of censorship has theadvantage of not being scrutinized by public eyes in the way that the work of institutionalized censorship agencies such as the Swedish Statens Biografbyrå was. It is not unlikely that expanded possibilities for punishing anyone who spreads copyrighted material will result in larger and larger areas that may not be accessed, as the avoiding of conflict and repressive actions will emphasize the behaviour to take detours around information that is deemed taboo and therefore suspicious and dangerous. The ACTA trade agreement is one proposed tool for such extended possibilities for punishment. This essay does not however claim that copyright and censorship are the same – but rather that the institutional execution of power that was previously a matter of state censorship has a lot of similarities with current and prognosticated application of copyright laws by corporations. While claiming to protect the individual, the disciplinary power executed actually aims to protect the one executing it; the purpose of the power structure is to replicate itself.

In what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze labelled Control Societies, mechanisms reminiscent of censorship – that is, restriction of information that administrators of power wish to regulate the spreading of – are present in the concept of copyright. This kind of censorship has the advantage of not being scrutinized by public eyes in the way that the work of institutionalized censorship agencies such as the Swedish Statens Biografbyrå was. It is not unlikely that expanded possibilities for punishing anyone who spreads copyrighted material will result in larger and larger areas that may not be accessed, as the avoiding of conflict and repressive actions will emphasize the behaviour to take detours around information that is deemed taboo and therefore suspicious and dangerous. The ACTA trade agreement is one proposed tool for such extended possibilities for punishment. This essay does not however claim that copyright and censorship are the same – but rather that the institutional execution of power that was previously a matter of state censorship has a lot of similarities with current and prognosticated application of copyright laws by corporations. While claiming to protect the individual, the disciplinary power executed actually aims to protect the one executing it; the purpose of the power structure is to replicate itself.

This thesis looks into the key aspects of surveillance and marketing issues. It describes surveillance as a subject of studies, historical development in studies regarding surveillance and default approaches to the surveillance from the Surveillance Studies branch point of view. Main source of information for the thesis comes from the concept of surveillance from Michael Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Zygmunt Bauman, David Lyon and other experts. Practical part of the thesis aims to present a balanced look on the marketing as a sphere of surveillance, to describe development of surveillance in marketing and to outline eventual risk and consequences of contemporary surveillance in marketing.

Internetövervakning har under senaste tiden blivit ett aktuellt ämne i media. Det rapporteras bland annat om att företag som samlar in information om privatpersoner. Datan som samlas in kan innehålla information om användares beteende på internet såsom besökta sidor, sökhistorik, aktivitet på sociala medier med mera. Men hur mycket av detta vet en vanlig användare om? Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur medvetna privatpersoner är om internetövervakning som bedrivs av företag och den datainsamling som den bygger på. Vad vet egentligen användarna om vad som samlas in, i vilket syfte, samt hur det samlas in? En studie utfördes bestående av intervjuer och enkäter som undersökte hur pass kunniga och upplysta privatpersoner var inom ämnet. Det undersöks också om användare aktivt försöker motverka detta. Därefter diskuteras vad kunskapsnivån kan bero på och vad de gör för att motverka datainsamling. Detta kopplas och jämförs mot tidigare forskning inom området. / Internet surveillance has recently become a hot topic in the media. It is reported among other things that companies collect information about individuals. The data collected may include information about the user's behavior on the internet such as pages visited, search history, activity on social media and more. But how much of this does a regular user know? The purpose of this study is to investigate how aware individuals are of internet surveillance conducted by companies and the data collection which it is based on. What do the users really know about what is collected, for what purpose, and how it is collected? A study was conducted consisting of interviews and questionnaires that examined how knowledge and education individuals have within the subject. It is also examined whether users are actively trying to counteract this. Thereafter it is discussed what this level of knowledge may depend on and what they are doing to counter data collection. This is linked and compared to previous research in the area.