The personal-computing revolution began with a promise: after decades of submission to centralized mainframes, ordinary users were now in control. Buttoned-up IBM loosened its collar, opened its new PC to accommodate hardware and software from a variety of suppliers, and even bought its operating system from a couple of Harvard University dropouts. To reinforce this message, IBM chose as its marketing emblem a look-alike of Charlie Chaplin―timeless hero of the harried underdog. It was a clever choice, and not inappropriate: the PC and other machines like it really did confer upon users a degree of control over information never before available. Twenty years later, technology industries are still promising us autonomy and independence. But that promise is falling flat. Asserting an unprecedented degree of control over their goods, even once they are in the customers' hands, technology producers are moving to circumscribe the freedom that technology users have long taken for granted. The same powerful trends that have brought leaps in performance―ubiquitous microprocessors, cheap digital storage, and virtually free data transmission―are making possible new ways for technology makers to control users' behavior. These developments reek more of Big Brother than the Little Tramp.
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