Today, I’ve read two quite fear-inducing stories about Google. Here’s the first:

Imagine that in the 19th century the company furthest advanced laying US railroads was given the right to build all future rail lines. The public might have gained from the new services, but ultimately been left at the whim of a powerful monopoly. Now take the deal between Google and the publishing industry to create a digital market for out-of-print books – some 40 per cent of all those ever published. However laudable such a goal that may be, it raises anticompetitive issues too.

And here’s the other:

Dutch twin brothers who mugged a teenager in the northern town of Groningen were arrested after being caught on camera by a car gathering images for Google’s online photo map service, police said.

So it seems Google is now becoming not only our librarian but our policeman, too. It’s a cliché to say were moving toward the dystopia of Orwell’s 1984; but this search engine’s awesome power – and its growing appetite for monopoly — disturbs.

What do the people of post-right think? Is the FT’s Lex right to say that “Google’s ingenuity does not give it the right to surround itself with an impregnable digital moat.”? Or is this technophobic paranoia?