Add this data point to Facebook setting up their own dorm/apartment project[1] and their efforts prevent employees from having any free time outside of work[2] so they can undo the last century or so of social progress that gave us stuff like "(classic) feminism" and "unions"[3].

Facebook is trying to set up their own Company Town. Usually, the response to this interpretation is to dismiss the possibility, with the company town being one of those "problems from last century we don't see anymore", and dismissing the problem like that is dangerous.

The coal companies (and similar) never really lost their towns, regardless of specifics of who's name is on the land deeds. It works out the same when there's only the one employer in the area. Facebook is not alone as a newcomer, either; Google has had some questionable press recently with their buses that seen to go wherever they want like they own the place, and they've been playing land games as well. There was even a story here recently about their price-fixing scam to slow wage growth and prevent competition ("bidding wars").

While current issues like the NSA has us distracted at the moment, I strongly believe this problem - where we forget about the labor issues of the past and allow the industrial-revolution-era problems and abuses slowly creep back in - is the longer-term fight, with stuff like the NSA's spying being more of a symptom of the problem.

Many people have observed that some of the NSA's statements and "interpretations" no longer seem to be tethered to any rational "legal basis" or "social contract", as they spin yet another justification for their behavior. Similarly, if Facebook and Google, etc, are allowed to continue buying up bits and pieces of our country, I hope you like that kind of "making up the law as we go" way of doing things. Once they gain that kind of de facto control over a piece of the country, they become effectively sovereign. Any power that might stop them is too far away and dealing with their own mess.

What do you call a form of government with a weak, basically non-existent amount of central control, thereby letting a handful of very powerful, very rich players to rule over their little corner of the world as they see fit?

You call it Feudalism, of course.

[1] http://mashable.com/2013/10/03/facebook-housing-complex/

[2] http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/feminisms-tip...

[3] http://thebaffler.com/past/facebook_feminism_like_it_or_not