Google institutionalized secrecy to sustain behavioral surplus extraction

Evidence

Once Google’s leadership understood the commercial power of behavioral surplus, Schmidt instituted what he called the “hiding strategy.” Google employees were told not to speak about what the patent had referred to as its “novel methods, apparatus, message formats and/or data structures” or confirm any rumors about flowing cash. Hiding was not a post hoc strategy; it was baked into the cake that would become surveillance capitalism. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 279

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s concept of visibility/panopticism inverted — here the powerful hide while surveilling the many. — connects to: Framing technology as autonomous disguises who profits from data extraction — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 511; User-controlled privacy blocking is existential to Google because tracking feeds its profit engine — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 433; Google dominates the infrastructure behind hidden app connections to behavioral surplus markets. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 2013 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Behavioral surplus extraction forms the core logic of surveillance capitalism #corroborates (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 70
• Surveillance capitalism exploits both extraction and our voluntary surrender via interfaces #qualifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 734
• Surveillance capitalist experiments exploit knowledge asymmetry to engineer user behavior for profit #corroborates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 934