Data Love considers the changes big data has brought to the human condition from a philosophical standpoint. Roberto Simanowski explores our entanglements with algorithmic analysis and data mining, as we contribute to the amassing of ever more data about our lives, leading to the statistical evaluation and individual profiling of our selves.

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.

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