Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Why do people voluntarily give away their personal data to private companies? In this paper, we show how data sharing is experienced at the level of Tesla car owners. We regard Tesla cars as luxury surveillance goods for which the drivers voluntarily choose to share their personal data with the US company. Based on an analysis of semi-structured interviews and observations of Tesla owners’ posts on Facebook groups, we discern three elements of luxury surveillance: socializing, enjoying, and enduring. We conclude that luxury surveillance can be traced back to the social bonds created by a gift economy.
Source: Surveillance & Society
Authors: Marc Schuilenburg, Yarin Eski
Institutions: Erasmus University Rotterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4413612602