Google sells fabricated predictions, not raw personal data

Evidence

Machine intelligence processes behavioral surplus into prediction products designed to forecast what we will feel, think, and do: now, soon, and later. These methodologies are among Google’s most closely guarded secrets. The nature of its products explains why Google repeatedly claims that it does not sell personal data. What? Never! Google executives like to claim their privacy purity because they do not sell their raw material. Instead, the company sells the predictions that only it can fabricate from its world-historic private hoard of behavioral surplus. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 303

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the prediction product as the actual commodity of surveillance capitalism, distinguishing it from personal data.
• SEED: Angle: the ‘we don’t sell your data’ defense reframed — the raw material is never the point, the derived prediction product is.
• XREF: connects to: Advertising platforms sell analysed targeting promises, not raw data — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 55; Google’s early ad-matching patents replaced guesswork with predictive behavioral data — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 245

Broader Connections

• Advertising platforms sell analysed targeting promises, not raw data #corroborates (0.92) — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 55
• Google’s early ad-matching patents replaced guesswork with predictive behavioral data #corroborates (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 245