Abstract
The information giants, Google being the largest, trade every day and build high-valuation mega-opolies on the back of very personal information without including their sources of value with any tangible return for their investment of exclusive data. The time has come to ask the question whether the grand bargain of ‘cool tools' in return for the most personal information is the best corporate, public and personal policy. In the long-run, the bargain is lopsided and may not be in the best interest of the huge digital players themselves. We are in the era of Information Imperialism which has trumped Digital Democracy — we need to have this complex discussion about the conversion of personal information into corporate fortunes in the open air of informed public debate.