[1] Vaidhyanathan is a permanent columnist at The Guardian and Slate; he is also a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, Slate, and The Baffler.

[2] Vaidhyanathan is of Indian descent[3] and was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning a BA in History in 1994 and a Ph.D. in 1999 in American Studies.

[citation needed] He has appeared in an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss early social network services.

[5] Vaidhyanathan has appeared in several documentary films, including Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013), Inside the Mind of Google (2009), and Freedom of Expression (2007).

[7] Vaidhyanathan was portrayed as a character on stage at the Public Theater in New York City in a play called Privacy (2016).