Google’s location history system is a product of the corporation’s global mapping operations. Though active for over a decade, it was unveiled to the public only in 2015 as “Your Timeline,” a feature that “allows you to visualize your real-world routines.” The corporation calculated that any negative reaction to the volume and persistence of tracking revealed by Timeline would be mitigated by the value of users’ active contributions to their own stocks of behavioral surplus as they fine-tune the information, add relevant photos, insert comments, and so forth. This was represented as an individual’s investment in personalized services such as Google Now so that it might more effectively comb your e-mail and apps in order to push relevant traffic and weather updates, notifications, suggestions, and reminders. Location data is the quid pro quo for these services.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 764