With click-through rates as the measure of relevance accomplished, behavioral surplus was institutionalized as the cornerstone of a new kind of commerce that depended upon online surveillance at scale. Insiders referred to Google’s new science of behavioral prediction as the “physics of clicks.” Mastery of this new domain required a specialized breed of click physicists who would secure Google’s preeminence within the nascent priesthood of behavioral prediction.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 263