"The reign of Big Tech is here, and Americans' First Amendment rights hang by a keystroke. Amassing unimaginable amounts of personal data, giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple--once symbols of American ingenuity and freedom--have become a techno-oligarchy with overwhelming economic and political power. Decades of unchecked data collection have given Big Tech more targeted control over Americans' daily lives than any company or government...

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years-the rise of personalization. In this groundbreaking investigation of the new hidden Web,...