Google’s mapping games served as test beds for expanding surveillance capitalism into physical space

Evidence

The invention in which Milner participated was related to a virtual reality game called Ingress, also developed by Hanke and his team at Google. (Hanke would eventually establish his own shop, Niantic Labs, within Google’s new Alphabet holding company.) Ingress became a test bed for many of the foundational concepts that reappeared in another “game,” Pokémon Go, a prototype of a second phase of surveillance capitalist expansion that we examine closely in Part II. In this next phase, Google’s maps are a critical resource for the expansion of digital dispossession from the virtual world to the one that we call “real.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 472

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s platform/surveillance theme and to how gamification (Pokémon Go) extends behavioral capture into the real world. — connects to: Competition drives surveillance capitalism from the virtual into the physical world — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1070; Google Maps marked surveillance’s shift from knowledge to influence and control — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 480; Google legitimated the ‘for-profit city’ as surveillance capitalism’s key urban ambition. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 712 (+9 more)
• SEED: The gamification of surveillance — how ‘fun’ mechanics (Pokémon Go, Ingress) function as onboarding for behavioral data extraction in physical space.

Broader Connections

• Competition drives surveillance capitalism from the virtual into the physical world #corroborates (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1070
• Google Maps marked surveillance’s shift from knowledge to influence and control #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 480
• Google legitimated the ‘for-profit city’ as surveillance capitalism’s key urban ambition. #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 712