Google declared a state of exception suspending users’ decision rights

Evidence

The state of exception declared by Google’s founders transformed the youthful Dr. Jekyll into a ruthless, muscular Mr. Hyde determined to hunt his prey anywhere, anytime, irrespective of others’ self-determining aims. The new Google ignored claims to self-determination and acknowledged no a priori limits on what it could find and take. It dismissed the moral and legal content of individual decision rights and recast the situation as one of technological opportunism and unilateral power. This new Google assures its actual customers that it will do whatever it takes to transform the natural obscurity of human desire into scientific fact. This Google is the superpower that establishes its own values and pursues its own purposes above and beyond the social contracts to which others are bound. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 257

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘state of exception’ concept as the founders’ justification for suspending normal constraints.
• XREF: Echoes Carl Schmitt’s sovereign ‘state of exception’ theory applied to corporate power. — connects to: Google’s patents explicitly aimed to circumvent users’ decision rights over their data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 249; Click-wrap contracts function as a unilateral private seizure of user rights — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 151

Broader Connections

• Click-wrap contracts function as a unilateral private seizure of user rights #exemplifies (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 151