Andrejevic's (2007) article articulates how digital enclosures are becoming a way for large company's such as Google and Microsoft to gather information about us, track us and our spending, and eventually use that information to market to us and make money off of us. He states that information is becoming “recentralized” with these companies that are able to harvest information regarding our actions on the internet (Andrejevic, 2007, pp. 296). They have created a business model out of the internet that was originally supposed to be “designed to facilitate access and sharing of information” (Andrejevic, 2007, pp. 307). In this paper, I will examine how this recentralization of information is a more complex version of what occurred, pre-printing press, in medieval Europe with the Catholic Church.
Before the printing press, there were very few individuals who knew how to read or write. These people were able to centralize information to themselves and were therefore able to have a great deal of control over the majority of illiterate peoples. The Church was able to commodify Catholicism. They did this by charging tithes, or taxes on harvests or income, in order to attain salvation. Tithes were taxes paid to the Church that were STRONGLY recommended, on the pretext that if one did not pay a tithe they and their family would not attain salvation once deceased. The Church then used this money to further their land power and building power. As they furthered their power, they were able to gain more and more money by marketing deceased saints' and religious person's body parts as “relics” that could perform miracles.
As a result of this information and no information to refute the information presented by the Church, Catholics took long pilgrimages to these sites to pay homage to these relics in hopes of a miracle and salvation. Of course, they had to pay a fee to the Church see these so called miracle workers. The Church also held control over its parishioners in the act of confession. By stating that the people had to confess in order to attain salvation (and who were the people to say no when they could not read the Bible for themselves?). In this way, the Church now knew everyone's private business and sins, placing local priests in a nearly insurmountable position of power over the parishioners in the possibility that they exploited the information relayed in confession to others. Lastly, as the Church grew financially, they naturally tried to expand.
Missionaries traveled far and wide to convert new followers to Catholicism and expand the Catholic empire. In these new places, they were forced in some cases to adapt Catholicism to the pre-existing religion in the area in order to make it more attractive to converts. This ultimately allowed the Church to gain more financially and dip its hand into greater areas. This is how the Church took advantage of the centralization of knowledge and the lack of education to the commoner in order to gain financially in an institution originally for worshipping God.
Andrejevic (2007) claims that companies like Google are recentralizing information by creating large databases of people's online histories and commidifying the internet just as the Church did with Catholicism. Currently, people are charged for internet access, just as people in medieval times were charged for salvation. In today's world, information IS salvation and the easiest and fastest way towards information is the internet. Just as the Church stressed afterlife, Google and internet companies are stressing present-life convenience to attain information. To get this information, once we have paid for internet, there are a multitude of search engines, but the biggest and most popular one is Google. We use Google to search for information that we want. Google is able to therefore, harvest what we search for, for future use. Similar to how the Church used confession to hold power over the parishioners, Google can go through their huge database of Gmail accounts, Google Documents, and Google searches to monitor your internet usage.
Google therefore is able to use this information to sell to marketers looking to see what online consumers want. They use this money, then, to offer new services (like free Wi-Fi in San Fransisco) in order to gain more information from consumers just as the Church used their money to expand their power. In terms of relics, Andrejevic (2007) makes the point that “the more ubiquitous such enclosures are, the more willing users will be to store an increasing range and quantity of personal data on them” (pp. 308). As more churches attained relics that performed so-called miracles, charged tithes, and mandated confession, people were more and more willing to invest money and information into the Church in hopes of salvation in the afterlife. Andrejevic (2007) mentions that Microsoft helped the Chinese government to sensor certain websites. This is parallel to the Church expanding into other areas of the world via missionaries in order to expand their power. Microsoft adapted their idea of censorship to apply better to Chinese policy, just as the Church adapted their religion to that of the local religion.
Ultimately, we are looking at the main issue of exploitation in this comparison. Do we believe now that it is worth it for Google to harvest our online information in exchange for free internet and information as medieval people viewed it as worth it for the Church to control their lives in return for future salvation? As the trend towards larger Google-like companies controlling vast amounts of information becomes more and more pervasive, will there be another printing press? Will there be another Martin Luther and his 95 Theses to bring Google back down? We shall find out soon enough in this rapidly growing world that is becoming more and more internet driven.
