Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life. Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms, the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of media development or the logical consequences of computation. They are the radicalization of the Enlightenment's quest for knowledge and progress. Data Love argues that the "cold civil war" of big data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and government but within each of us.

Roberto Simanowski elaborates on the changes data love has brought to the human condition while exploring the entanglements of those who—out of stinginess, convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion—contribute to the amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves. Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the social implications of technological development and retrieves the concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help decode the programming of our present.

"Compelling. . . . Simanowski makes an excellent case that the most essential struggle is not with the NSA or Facebook but with ourselves." - Times Literary Supplement

"Recommended." - Choice

"Data Love dares us to reflect on the progression of our relationship with data, to think where zealous data mining might be leading, and then to solemnly answer the question: does data love us back?" - Information, Communication & Society

"A splendid and beautiful book about our society, our relationship with technologies, but most important, governments' relationship with them. . . . Highly recommended to everyone." - Articles and more