The translation of behavioral surplus from outside to inside the market finally enabled Google to convert investment into revenue. The corporation thus created out of thin air and at zero marginal cost an asset class of vital raw materials derived from users’ nonmarket online behavior. At first those raw materials were simply “found,” a byproduct

In contrast, Google’s inventions destroyed the reciprocities of its original social contract with users. The role of the behavioral value reinvestment cycle that had once aligned Google with its users changed dramatically. Instead of deepening the unity of supply and demand with its populations, Google chose to reinvent its business around the

Both Brin and Page are even more candid in their contempt for law and regulation. CEO Page surprised a convocation of developers in 2013 by responding to questions from the audience, commenting on the “negativity” that hampered the firm’s freedom to “build really great things” and create “interoperable” technologies with other companies: “Old

According to documents obtained by Consumer Watchdog under the Freedom of Information Act, the NSA paid Google for a “search appliance capable of searching 15 million documents in twenty-four languages.” Google extended its services for another year at no cost in April 2004.76

Another 2015 analysis, this one of the top one million websites, by Timothy Libert of the University of Pennsylvania, found that 90 percent leak data to an average of nine external domains that track, capture, and expropriate user data for commercial purposes. Among these websites, 78 percent initiate third-party transfers to a domain owned by one

Google was also among the wealthiest of all registered lobbyists in the EU, second only to a lobbying group that represents a confederation of European corporations.

In 2004 Google acquired Keyhole, a satellite mapping company founded by John Hanke, whose key venture backer was the CIA venture firm, In-Q-Tel. Keyhole would become the backbone for Google Earth, and Hanke would go on to lead Google Maps, including the controversial Street View Project. In 2009 Google Ventures and In-Q-Tel both invested in a

In this picture, commercial surveillance is not merely an unfortunate accident or occasional lapse. It is neither a necessary development of information capitalism nor a necessary product of digital technology or the internet. It is a specifically constructed human choice, an unprecedented market form, an original solution to emergency, and the

Their efforts have been marked by a few consistent themes: that technology companies such as Google move faster than the state’s ability to understand or follow, that any attempts to intervene or constrain are therefore fated to be ill-conceived and stupid, that regulation is always a negative force that impedes innovation and progress, and that