accumulation by dispossession, 22
Acura, 55
AdForce, 43
AdRank, 39
AdSense, 41
advertising, mass production of, 43–44
AlltheWeb, 40
Alphabet, Inc., 1, 4, 6, 52, 81–82, 136, 158
Altmaier, Peter, 171
Amazon, 1–3, 8–9, 13, 50, 56; ad revenues of, 54; capital investments in infrastructure by, 65; cloud services by, 60–64; data centers of, 67–68; data collection by, 54–55; fiber cables and, 70, 71; ICT spending by, 13; online advertising by, 32–33; workers at, 101
Amazon Prime, 56
Amazon Web Services (AWS), 61, 68
American Express, 55
American Innovation and Choice Online Act, 2
American Railway Union (ARU), 119
America Online (AOL), 25, 30, 33, 36, 55; advertising on, 32; Community Leader Program of, 107–8
Apple, 1–2, 5, 8–9, 46, 50, 56; App Tracking Transparency, 58; data centers of, 68–69; Google as default search engine and, 53; mobile services by, 57; privacy issues and, 57–58; worker benefits at, 117–18
Apple Pay, 57
Archie, 24
Aren, Alexa, 137
Arora, Nikesh, 56
Ars Technica, 137
artificial intelligence (AI), 61, 152–53
Arvidsson, Adam, 102
AT&T, 33, 53, 65, 89; advertising and, 55–56; welfare capitalism at, 120
Axios, 95
Baidu, 3–4, 8–9, 30, 139–40, 149–50; competition for, 150–53; use outside China, 153–59. See also China
Ballmer, Steve, 154
Baran, Paul, 12
Bartz, Carol, 5
Bellamy-Foster, John, 12
Bell Telephone Company, 104
Benkler, Yochai, 49
Bernanke, Ben, 4
Biao Xiang, 96
Biden administration, 2, 8, 95, 169, 172
black box society, 45
Bohnett, David, 107
Borrell, Josep, 169
Botwinick, Howard, 12
Brady, Tim, 31
Brandes, Stuart, 14
Brave Search, 46
Braverman, Harry, 14, 86–87, 101, 112, 116
Bryan, Richard, 50
Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 120
Bullington, Brett, 34
Burawoy, Michael, 14
Bush, George H. W., 27
capitalism, 10–12; global, 3, 7, 82; imperialism and, 15–16, 140; labor processes under, 96–102; role in development of information and communication technologies, 26–28, 140; self-service model in, 104; unpaid labor and, 105–6, 111; welfare (See welfare capitalism)
Carter, Jimmy, 27
Cartoon Network, 56
Chambers, John, 5
ChaoYang Zhang, 151
Chibber, Vivek, 178
China: artificial intelligence and, 152–53; data centers in, 68–69; foreign investment in, 147–48; Internet sector in, 8–9, 15–16, 139–40, 141, 144–48, 176–77; investment in Europe, 168–69; search engine competition in, 150–53; variable interest entities (VIEs) in, 147–48; venture capital in, 146; in the World Trade Organization, 145. See also Baidu
Chirac, Jacques, 160
Cisco System, 5
click through rate (CTR), 39
Clinton, Bill, 27
Clinton, Hillary, 95
CMGI, 43
Cnet, 54
CNN, 56
Cohen, Lizabeth, 14
Colleoni, Elanor, 102
commodification of search services, 21–23, 178; AdWords and, 38–39; banner ads in, 31–32, 34, 37; click through rate (CTR) and, 39; cookies and, 37–38; cost per click (CPC) model, 32, 35, 39; cost per mille (CPM) model, 31, 38–39; Google Analytics and, 41–43; initial public offerings (IPOs) and, 30–31; mass production of advertising and, 43–44; paid search in, 34–35; profits and, 29–33; venture capital and, 29–30
Computerization of Society, 142
consumer access to Internet services, 78–82
corporate welfare. See welfare capitalism
Costa, Daniel, 95
Costolo, Dick, 5
cost per click (CPC) model, 32, 35, 39
cost per mille (CPM) model, 31, 38–39
Crawford, Susan, 79
Cutt, Matt, 98
demand economy, 13
Der Spiegel, 170
d'Estaing, Valéry Giscard, 142
Deutsch, Tracy, 103
digital capitalism, 11
digital divide, 78
Digital Promise, 5
DirecTV, 56
Disney Plus, 56
Door Dash, 13
Draper, Timothy, 30
Eastman Kodak, 120
Ecosia, 46
Edwards, P. K., 14
Ejustice.fr, 165
Elastic Compute Cloud, 60
Ellison, Larry, 5
Endicott-Johnson, 120
Europeana, 162
European Union (EU), 2, 9, 41, 139, 141; as battlefield for Internet capital, 165–71; countering Google in, 159–64; data protection and regulation in, 169–71; European Information Society, 161–62; foreign direct investment (FDI) in, 168–69
Excite, 25, 29–30; variety of early services provided by, 33
Facebook, 1–3, 5, 8–9, 50, 56; ad revenues of, 53–54, 58; Audience Network, 58; capital investments in infrastructure by, 65; consumer access to Internet services and, 80–81; data centers of, 68; fiber cables and, 70, 71, 76–77; Google collusion with, 53; not accessible in China, 155; quality raters at, 99; worker benefits at, 117–18
Federal Reserve, 4
Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, 27
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 38, 41
Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), 46
Fields, Gary, 51
flexible organizations, 100
Flycast, 43
Focal Link, 43
Ford Motor Company, 14, 122–23
Foster, John Bellamy, 102
Foundem, 165
Free Flow of Information doctrine, 142–43
Fuchs, Christian, 102
FWD.us, 94
Gates, Bill, 94
Geico, 55
Geithner, Tim, 4
General Electric, 120
General Motors, 121
GeoCities, 107
geopolitics, 140–41, 171–72, 177–78; Free Flow of Information doctrine and, 142–43; new world information and communication order (NWICO) and, 142–43; Non-Aligned Movement, 142; United States’ emergence as superpower after World War II and, 141–42. See also China; European Union (EU)
Gerrard, Albert, 103
ghost workers, 99
gig economy, 13
Gillespie, Tarleton, 99
Glos, Michael, 161
Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994, 27
Goldfarb, Brent, 29
Good Year Tire and Rubber, 120
Google, 5, 8–9, 13, 29; acquisition of DoubleClick, 41; AdMob, 58; AdSense program, 41; ad system implemented by, 39–43; antitrust cases against, 9, 165–66; banner ads on, 37; capital investments in infrastructure by, 65; in China, 153–57; click through rate (CTR) and, 39; cloud services by, 61; co-creation and, 110–11; collusion with Facebook, 53; competitors of, 50–51; consumer access to Internet and, 78–82; control strategies of, 53–54; CPC pricing model adopted by, 39; data centers of, 66–67; as dominant search company, 23, 49–50, 52–53, 139–40, 144, 175; dot-com bubble and, 34–36; economic power of, 1–2; emphasis on relevance, 39–40; in Europe, 159–71; expansion of physical facilities of, 130–31; fiber cables and, 69–78; free search on, 44–45; ICT spending by, 13; internet infrastructure and, 50–51, 65, 176; long term success of, 46–47; management style at, 128–29, 131–35; mass advertising on, 44; mobile services by, 56–60; ongoing disputes over copyright issues, 51–52; Open Directory Project and, 106; organizational culture at, 131–35; PageRank algorithm, 25, 35, 109–10; participatory culture at, 135–37; People Operations (POps) at, 131–34; privacy issues and, 46–47, 51–52, 57–58; Project Aristotle, 134; Project Oxygen, 134; quality raters at, 98–99; remote workers at, 115; Search Quality Evaluation Team, 98; unpaid labor and, 109–12; variety of workers at, 97–99, 101, 127–28; worker benefits at, 117–18, 128–29. See also Alphabet, Inc.; YouTube
Google Express, 54
Google GV, 81
Google Health, 110
Google Plus, 54
Google Shopping Express, 54
Google Translate, 110
Gopher, 24
government, cloud services for, 62–64
Gray, Mary, 99
Gray, Matthew, 25
Great Depression, 125
Great Railroad Strike (1877), 119
Great Recession (2008), 60, 87–88, 100
Harding, Verity, 110
Hardt, Michael, 13
Harvey, David, 11, 22, 26, 50–51, 97, 99
Hastings, Reed, 5
Hawthorne Effect, 124
Haymarket incident (1886), 119
HBO, 56
Hennessy, John, 6
Herman, Andrew, 14
Hermann, Christoph, 22
Hewlett-Packard, 89
Hira, Ron, 95
history of search engines, 23–26
Hölzle, Urs, 70
Hong Shen, 15
HotBot, 106
HotWired, 31
Huffington Post, 55
Huws, Ursula, 13, 99, 100, 103
H. J. Heinz, 120
iAds, 57
IBM, 14, 121; data centers of, 167
immaterial labor, 13
industrial capitalism, 11
informational capitalism, 11
information and communication technologies (ICTs), 10–13; in China, 8–9, 15–16, 139–40, 141, 144–48; geopolitics and, 143; role of capitalist state in development of, 26–28, 140
information-retrieval (IR) systems, 23–24
Infoseek, 29, 30; variety of early services provided by, 33
initial public offerings (IPOs), 30–31
Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, 8
Instagram, 54
Intel, 6
Intercept, 157
International Harvester, 120
International Telecommunication Union, 143
Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), 143
Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF), 37–38
internet infrastructure, 50–51, 65, 176; consumer access to, 78–82; data centers and, 65–69; fiber cables in, 69–78
Jacobs, Paul, 6
Jarvis, Jeff, 110
Jeanneney, Jean-Noël, 161, 163
Jiang Zemin, 145
Jobs, Steve, 5
Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), 63–64
Jonna, Jamil, 102
JPMorgan Chase, 13
Jughead, 24
just-in-time production model, 100
Kerr, Clark, 28
Khashoggi, Jamal Ahmad, 67
Kirsch, David, 29
Kissinger, Henry, 155
Kleinfield, Abe, 34
Kordestani, Omid, 40
Kristol, David, 37
Kurkoski, Jennifer, 133
Labombarda, Joe, 129
labor, 85–87, 175–76; Americanization of immigrant, 122; co-creation and, 108, 110–11; consumer, 104–5; contract workers, 101–2; as covert strategic workforce, 108–12; digital, 13–14; in flexible organizations, 100; ghost workers, 99; Googleplex benefits and, 117–18; H-1B employees, 93–95; Hawthorne Effect and, 124; immigration reform and, 94–95; IT workers as top of pyramid, 90–96; participatory culture and, 135–37; precariousness as permanent feature for capitalist, 96–102; quality raters, 98–99, 102; remote, 115; reserve army of labor (RAL), 86–87, 88, 90; surplus, 87–90; unpaid, 102–5; in search, 105–8. See also welfare capitalism
Labor and Monopoly Capital, 14
labor unions, 14–15, 126, 136–37
Lanctot, Jeff, 54
Lazzarato, Maurizio, 13
League of Social Service, 121
lean production model, 100
Le Maire, Bruno, 171
Lenovo, 60
Levitt, Theodore, 104
Levitt, William, 104
LG, 53
Li, Robin, 149
Lianrui Jia, 152
Los Deliveristas Unidos, 179
Luchtmeier, Hendrik, 161
Lutao Ning, 146
Lyft, 113
Magdoff, Fred, 87
Magdoff, Harry, 87
Manjoo, Farhad, 132
marketing complex, 23
MatchLogic, 43
Mathur, Rajive, 34
MediaMath, 58
Messenger, 54
Microsoft, 1, 6, 8–9, 30, 50, 167–68; capital investments in infrastructure by, 65; in China, 154–55; cloud services by, 61–62, 63; consumer access to Internet services and, 81; data centers of, 67; employees of, 89, 94; fiber cables and, 71, 77
Microsoft Azure, 62
Microsoft Bing, 3, 4, 53, 55, 155
Ming Tang, 157
Min Tang, 15
Mitterrand, François, 163
Montulli, Lou, 37
Moody, Kim, 50
Motorola, 53
Motorola Mobility, 60
Mozilla Opera, 53
MSN, 33
muckrakers, 121
Mundie, Craig, 6
Musk, Elon, 61
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), 125
National Cash Register, 14, 120–21, 128, 137
National Civic Federation, 121
National Economic Council, 2
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 137
National Security Agency (NSA), 167
Naver, 3
NBCUniversal, 56
Neeva, 46
Negri, Antonio, 13
Negroponte, Nicholas, 151
Nelson, Daniel, 120
NetGravity, 43
net neutrality, 52
Newman, Jordan, 132
new world information and communication order (NWICO), 142–43
New York Times, 58, 132, 156, 160, 162
Ng, Andrew, 154
Non-Aligned Movement, 142
Obama, Barack, 4–7, 62, 87–88, 144
Omnicom Group, Inc., 55
1PlusV, 165
Open App Markets Act, 2
Open Directory Project (ODP), 106–7
open shop campaigns, 125
OpenX, 58
Oracle, 5
organizational culture, 131–35
Otellini, Paul, 6
Overture, 34
Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN), 72–74
Page, Larry, 25, 36, 45, 81, 127
PageRank algorithm, 25, 35, 109–10
Palm, Michael, 104
Pasquale, Frank, 45
Patterson John, 128
PayPal, 54
Peacock, 56
Pfarrer, Michael, 29
Piggly Wiggly, 103
Pinkerton, Brian, 25
platform capitalism, 11
political economy of communication (PEC), 10
political economy of search, 9–16
Politico, 9
Prashad, Vijay, 7
privacy issues, 46–47, 51–52, 57–58
Proctor & Gamble (P&G), 32, 55, 58; welfare capitalism at, 120
Project Maven, 62
ProQuest, 164
public-private research partnerships, 22
Pubmatic, 58
Pullman, 120
Qualcomm, 6
Qwant, 46
Racine, Bruno, 162
Radcliffe, David, 130
Razorfish, 54
Reagan, Ronald, 27
remote workers, 115
reserve army of labor (RAL), 86–87, 88, 90
Rezner, John, 107
Rice, Condoleezza, 95
Roberts, Edward, 151
Rochet, Jean-Charles, 23
Roethlisberger, Fritz, 123
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 125
Rozovsky, Julia, 134
Rural Airband initiative, 81
Sacks, Samm, 7
Saunders, Clarence, 103
Schiller, Dan, 11, 13, 15, 140, 143
Schmidt, Eric, 5, 6; on advertising at Google, 40, 44; on China, 158; on the COVID-19 pandemic, 173; on Google as neutral platform, 52; immigration reform and, 94, 95; management technique of, 129; public image of, 127; visit to Cuba by, 75
Schröder, Gerhard, 160
Schumpeter, Joseph, 52
scientific management, 14, 113, 115–16, 119
search engines, 1; banner ads on, 31–32; in China (see China); commodification of (see commodification of search services); growing scholarly interest in, 2–3; history of, 23–26; industry expansion and, 15; internet infrastructure and, 50–51; as platforms, 23; political economic and geopolitical context of Internet use, 3–9; political economy of search and, 9–16; privacy issues and, 46–47; public information and, 174–75
Search Engine Watch, 34, 98–99
sharing economy, 13
Shenma, 152
Shopify, 54
Silicon Valley Index, 92
Silicon Valley Model, 28
Smith, Brad, 158
Smyrnaio, Nikos, 49
Smythe, Dallas, 102
Snowden, Edward, 167
Sogou, 151
SpaceX, 61
Spero, Jason, 40
Springer, Axel, 166
Sprint, 70
Standard Oil, 120
Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP), 25
Stanford University, 6
Startpage, 46
Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act (1980), 27
strikes, labor, 119
Sullivan, Danny, 34
Sullivan, John, 132
Sun Microsystems, 106
Suri, Siddharth, 99
surveillance capitalism, 10–11
Sweezy, Paul, 12
Swisscows, 46
Taft-Hartley Act (1947), 126
Taylor, Frederick, 113, 115, 119
Taylorism, 14, 113, 115–16, 119
TBS, 56
TechCrunch, 55
Telecommunications Act (1996), 29
Tenor Processing Unit, 61
Terranova, Tiziana, 13
Theseus program, 161
Tirole, Jean, 23
Tizen, 59
TNT, 56
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), 6
TripAdvisor, 166
Trump, Donald, 6–8, 64, 95, 169
Tunis Agenda, 143
Turner, Clair, 123
Turner Classic Movies, 56
Twitter, 5
UCWeb browser, 53
unpaid labor, 102–5; as covert strategic workforce, 108–12; in search, 105–8
Upwork, 13
Urchin Software Corporation, 41
US Chamber of Commerce, 125, 157–58
US Steel, 120
Van Couvering, Elizabeth, 33
variable interest entities (VIEs), 147–48
venture capital, 29–30; in China, 146
Verily, 81
Veronica, 24
Vestager, Margrethe, 168
Vinje, Thomas, 166
von der Leye, Ursula, 168
Wall Street Journal, 33, 55, 65, 70, 156
Warner Bros. Discovery, 56
Waymo, 81
Wealth of Networks, The, 49
Webcrawler, 25
welfare capitalism, 14–15; Americanization of immigrants and, 122; contemporary, 127–31; defined, 115–16; emergence of, 119; at Ford Motor Company, 122–23; Google's labor management and, 131–38; during the Great Depression, 125–26; Hawthorne Effect and, 124; labor unions and, 126, 136–37; at National Cash Register, 120–21, 128; open shop campaigns and, 125; organized labor and, 126; participatory culture and, 135–37; piecemeal programs in early, 120; rise of, 118–26; social reformers and, 121; spread of, in the early twentieth century, 121–22; at Western Electric, 120, 123–24; during World War I, 124–25
Welle, Brian, 135
WhatsApp, 54
WikiLeaks, 163
World Bank, 71
World Trade Organization, 71, 145
World War II, 141
WPP PLC, 55
WWW Wanderer, 25
Xu, Eric, 149
Yahoo!, 3–5, 25, 29–31, 36, 53, 106; acquisition of GeoCities by, 107; acquisition of Inktomi, AltaVista, and AlltheWeb, 40; fee-based content on, 34; human indexers and librarians working at, 97; Proctor & Gamble advertising on, 32; variety of early services provided by, 33
Yandex, 3
Yellen, Janet, 158
YouTube, 4, 52, 56, 78, 109–10
Yuezhi Zhao, 15
Yu Hong, 15
Zimmer, Michael, 45
ZTE, 169