George Orwell used to live fifty yards from where I'm writing this blog (he lived in so many places this counts for little) and his great fear, voiced in 1984 was the dominance of the State. But now, the hegemony of the State has been usurped by certain companies, who are posing grave and serious threats to society, community and commerce.
One of them, Google, has now admitted to hacking people's personal WiFi connections. Does this company know no limits ?
When, oh, when will Google be regulated in any way, shape or form ? The company has pretty much killed online publishing through its price gouging and absolute monopoly of the online advertsing market.
Its YouTube business acts more and more like a broadcaster yet faces no sanctions for its wholesale piracy and is not regulated in the same way as, say ITV, which this week received ongoing confirmation of ridiculous and outdated protectionist laws despite having a fraction of the market it operates in when compared to YouTube.
This is also a company that takes billions from the UK economy yet pays practically no corporate tax in this country, using Ireland as a vacuum cleaner for our money.
Google has carefully cultivated ties with the Tories, but it's surely time for our new regime to come to terms with this monopoly as soon as possible, if only to bring them into line with UK media companies.