ABSTRACT
The term "coercive connectivity" is more apt, both because it means by which pinpointing becomes possible, and also because it avoids the connotation – for better or worse – that all uses of electronic monitoring (EM) must necessarily be prison substitutes. Even the best theoretical scholarship on the commercial aspects of EM has never grasped its full technological dimensions. "Information capitalism" describes the data-driven economy. Zuboff prefers the more normative term "surveillance capitalism" to designate the relentless, asymmetric extraction, analysis and monetization of data from users of ubiquitous online services, seemingly without regard to the social, cultural and political consequences of such exposure. The roots of modern pinpointing technologies lie in ballistics, orbital satellites for navigation and communication, landline and mobile telephony and earth sensing technologies. Internet technologies enabled, them amplified, the need for instant locatability and real-time connectivity. The Global Positioning System companies involved, more so than the Radio Frequency companies which preceded them, are overtly digital businesses.
