Large is beautiful. The usefulness of information and communication technologies increases with the number of people who use them. The more people form part of communication networks, the greater the amount of information that is produced.

Dollars and Dreams. Microsoft founder Bill Gates dreams of "friction free capitalism", a new stage of capitalism in which perfect information becomes the basis for the perfection of the markets.

But exploitative practices have not disappeared. Instead, they have colonised the digital arena where effective protective regulation is still largely absent.

User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying.

"Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent." (David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center)

Digital pancapitalism. In informatised economies, traditional exploitative practices are obscured by the glamour of new technologies. And the nearly universal acceptance of the ICT message has prepared the ground for a revival of 19th century "adapt-or-perish" ideology.

"There is nothing more relentlessly ideological than the apparently anti-ideological rhetoric of information technology" (Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, media theorists)