Last week, a friend sent me an email with a clipping of the Facebook terms and conditions, says Atticus. It described how Facebook has a full license to the content that its users put on the social networking site. Obviously this raises huge questions about how we share information online: What would this information be used for? And if we do want to take part in this ongoing communications revolution, how do we retain personal autonomy and privacy?

While social networking sites are powerful tools for people to communicate with each other, they are also run by large companies that want a return on their investment. Many companies such as Facebook are yet to make a profit, and it's still unclear how they will. In some ways it's like we back in the wild early .com days of the internet, with speculation on its future running wild. The one thing that is certain is that all companies see our data – information about our lives – as the key.

Myspace is down, and Facebook is up, but who's actually going to make a profit? And how are they going to use the information they take from all of us to do so? One of Google's ultimate aims is to know each user so well that you can simply type in "what shall I do today?" and it will be able to answer you. The prospect is ever so slightly terrifying in that it begins to undermine our very notions of free will. What happens if our very deepest needs and desires can be predicted by powerful algorithms?

Of course, business has long viewed people as trumped up robots, and concerned itself with what buttons of ours to press – what fears and desires to manipulate; where to place the most profitable products in the supermarket. We're not citizens, we're consumers of our life.

What's the problem, you may say? If sophisticated software can help me make decisions in my life, it's all good. But such powerful tools are always used in the service of powerful interests. Our best interest will always come second. We should bear in mind the title of a book by the grandfather of public relations, Fraud's nephew, Edward Bernays. It's called The Engineering of Consent. If that's not an Orwellian turn of phrase, I don't know what is.