This chapter covers the multidisciplinary literature on the protection of personal information in the online world, which extends back to the origins of social research on computing, and addresses the link between key structures of the Internet and the literatures on privacy and surveillance. Then, it turns to the literature on the role of international, legal, self-regulatory, and technological policy instruments in protecting personal information online. The nature of the Internet is entirely consistent with the metaphor of the ‘surveillant assemblage’. The Internet has become a fundamentally ‘surveillance-ready’ technology, and is becoming deeply integrated into the structures of social life. The rise of Internet-enabled surveillance and information control is significant. The story of privacy and surveillance is episodic and reflective of quite frenzied attempts to come to grips with unprecedented technological transformations in the light of the most recent scandal or controversy.