digital exhaust

English

Noun

digital exhaust (uncountable)

1. Information created by a person using the Internet or other digital activities, especially when used for commercial purposes.

   Synonyms: data exhaust, digital footprint

   • 2011 April 19, Sumit Paul-Choudhury, “Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul”, in NewScientist‎^[1]:

     Even your “digital exhaust”, such as search requests and browsing history, is often recorded by companies who want to target you with personalised advertising.

   • 2016, Clara Shih, The Social Business Imperative […] , Prentice Hall, →ISBN:

     The trusted advisor, with our permission, can simply watch and analyze the “digital exhaust” from our activities to develop deep insight into who we are and what is important to us.

   • 2018, Shoshana Zuboff, chapter 3, in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:

     Who would dare to redefine “digital exhaust” as booty or contraband, or imagine that Google had learned how to purposefully construct that so-called “exhaust” with its methods, apparatus, and data structures?

Further reading

• data exhaust on Wikipedia.Wikipedia