Includes bibliographical references.

They're taking over our lives and it will soon be too late to stop them. They can invisibly influence elections, keep their tax off-shore, monopolise vital services in your city while refusing workers rights, become your only source of news and information while controlling data and intelligence that dwarfs the capabilities of your government. Digital technology is piece by piece dismantling our democracy. It is destroying essential civic institutions like independent media, creating unparalleled powerful monopolies, turbo-charging inequality and creating tech that law-makers don't understand and can't regulate.