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Another factor that will restrict web freedom is advertising. According to Brian Davison, a computer scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, its influence will continue to grow. Desperate to be noticed by people whose attention spans are a mouse click long, advertisers will invent ever more devious strategies to suck you in.

A few tricks are around already. Say you are trying to reach Microsoft.com, but you accidentally type Macrosoft.com. You'll end up on a page for a company whose name has nothing to do with the word Macrosoft - they're just parked in that domain to get more exposure. You'll find something similar at Mycrosoft.com.

Web advertising is evolving quickly, though. The next generation will sneak into search results, Davison says. For example, a website that sells movie posters might worm its way into the results for a movie review. The link might look useful, but clicking through will bring up an advert. The danger is that such activity will gum up search results, stopping us finding what we need.

Web advertising is likely to balloon from another direction too. The next five years could see a dramatic change as "blogvertising" takes off.

Already, ads that once appeared in print are showing up on blogs. Bloggers stand to gain ever more of the advertising share for one simple reason: they can create custom content for advertisers. This is leading to a new style of blog that blurs the line between editorial and advertisement.

Federated Media, a company that specialises in bringing bloggers and advertisers together, has been a pioneer in this area. It helped Samsung advertise its HD TVs by creating a blog called Defining Moment. Sports bloggers contributed their posts about the best moments within sports games in exchange for ad money. All advertising on the site was by Samsung.