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"Is it possible to be quoted shrugging my shoulders?" asks Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich when Fox News requested the company's comment on Cleland's book. "Everyone knows that Mr. Cleland stopped being a neutral analyst years ago and is now paid by Microsoft and AT&T to criticize Google full-time."

is a consultant to some of Google's competitors, including Microsoft and AT&T.

Cleland refused to confirm it or reveal the names of any of his clients

"What happens is that Google is the company that most successfully takes advantage of the Internet," says Levy, who does caution that "there's a real concern because they do have a lot of information about us, and I think Google should be as transparent as possible. In most cases, I think they are pretty transparent about what they have on you and how it works."

On Tuesday, South Korean authorities reportedly raided that country's Google offices to investigate if the company "has been illegally collecting private data."

"I don't think there's ever been a U.S. corporation that has had so much control," says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in Washington, D.C., who also teaches Internet privacy law at Georgetown. "It would be like a company producing automobiles, providing oil, and building the highways ... We're in a similar situation today with the Internet and Google."

"Any company with the power of Google has to be watched," says Levy. "But I don’t think Google is a company which is intending to take over the world in some sort of negative sense." But Cleland's version of Google argues that it does. "Google says overtly that they want to change the world," Cleland says, warning that "Google is leading us towards a collectivist society, a planned economy and one world government." "The more you learn about Google, the more troubled you will become."