'I Am not a Web Search Result! I Am a Free Word.' The Categorization and Commodification of 'Switzerland' by Google

Abstract

Imagine a world in which all your questions meet calculated answers defined and achieved by an opaque process. A place where your various interrogations are tracked and stored so that the knowledge the system possesses about you is continuously refined. Your behavior, centers of interest, habits, and languages are endlessly monitored, collected, and transmitted to a secret, remote command center...

Starting with the late sixties cult TV series 'The Prisoner' this book chapter examines in more detail the forms of confinement enabled by Google, their organization, and their performativity with regard to accessing content through this service. We begin not from a small village but from a word, in order to understand how it is processed by passing through the "mills" of Google.

Keywords: web search, commodification