Behavioral data shifted from improving service to reading users’ minds for ad targeting.
Evidence
In other words, Google would no longer mine behavioral data strictly to improve service for users but rather to read users’ minds for the purposes of matching ads to their interests, as those interests are deduced from the collateral traces of online behavior. With Google’s unique access to behavioral data, it would now be possible to know what a particular individual in a particular time and place was thinking, feeling, and doing. That this no longer seems astonishing to us, or perhaps even worthy of note, is evidence of the profound psychic numbing that has inured us to a bold and unprecedented shift in capitalist methods. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 244
Categorization
- DEFINE: Distinguishes service-improving data use from mind-reading ad prediction as the core reorientation of surveillance capitalism.
- DEEPTHINKING: The point about ‘psychic numbing’ — that our astonishment at mind-reading has been normalised away — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting observation about how new capitalist methods slip into the background.
- XREF: connects to: Advertising platforms sell analysed targeting promises, not raw data — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 55; Google’s data shifted from improving services to generating ad revenue — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 52; Personality-based behavioral targeting moved from elections to commercial sales after 2016. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 865 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Behavioral surplus is data used beyond improving search service quality
#expands(0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 232 - Surveillance platforms extract behavioral data from users and sell predictions to advertisers
#expands(0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 297 - Behavioral ad targeting was sold as a clairvoyant valet ideally suited to customer needs
#corroborates(0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1080 - Google’s early ad-matching patents replaced guesswork with predictive behavioral data
#expands(0.70) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 245