Google’s mapping ambitions presupposed nothing in the world lay beyond its borders
Evidence
Google had already taken everything on the web, but Street View and Google’s other mapping operations, Google Maps and Google Earth (the company’s 3-D view of the world using satellite and aerial imagery), announced an even-more-ambitious vision. Everything in the world was to be known and rendered by Google, accessed through Google, and indexed by Google in its infinite appetite for behavioral surplus. The presumption is that nothing is beyond Google’s borders. The world is vanquished now, on its knees, and brought to you by Google. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 446
Categorization
- SEED: The ‘world on its knees, brought to you by Google’ framing is a sharp angle for an essay on platform totalism.
- XREF: connects to: Google’s mapping games served as test beds for expanding surveillance capitalism into physical space — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 472; Google staked its claim to cyberspace as ungoverned territory beyond reach of law — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 330; Street View extends Google’s web-crawler dispossession into the physical world — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 474 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Street View extends Google’s web-crawler dispossession into the physical world
#expands(0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 474 - Google’s mapping games served as test beds for expanding surveillance capitalism into physical space
#expands(0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 472 - Google legally framed public spaces as unauthorized surveillance territory
#expands(0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 444 - Google staked its claim to cyberspace as ungoverned territory beyond reach of law
#expands(0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 330