Keller @ Large: Have We Given Up Too Much Control To Tech Giants?

BOSTON (CBS) - The ambitious young billionaires and billionaire-wannabes of tech world hope you never get around to reading Sunday's New York Times, which features a scathing article by journalist Noam Cohen, author of "The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball."

Cohen touches on a range of concerns about the emerging tech-giant monopolies - Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft. He describes their evolution from altruism to naked exploitation of their power and customer trust for profit. And he repeats an old lesson we've hopefully learned: "the extreme concentration of wealth and power is a threat to our democracy by making some people and companies unaccountable."

No, the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world don't want talk like this interfering with their fun, and the pushback is anticipated by Cohen.

"To oppose Silicon Valley can appear to be opposing progress, even if progress has been defined as online monopolies; propaganda that distorts elections; driverless cars and trucks that threaten to erase the jobs of millions of people; the Uberization of work life, where each of us must fend for ourselves in a pitiless market."

What does opposing Silicon Valley mean?

Cohen is just the latest voice to call for antitrust action to curb these mushrooming monopolies, because, he writes: "If a few people make the decisions about how we communicate, shop, learn the news, again, do we control our own society?"

That's good question, especially if you feel society is already spiraling out of your control.