A book written as though it were a near future satire written in the early 70s about an advertising company that invents all sorts of technologies as a way of targeting adverts to people e.g. an electronic mail system that displays adverts based on words in your message, an electronic map system, something that takes text from newspapers and sends it to their users,and even a special sort of 'mobile telephone' ties the user into this company's computer systems for more targeted advertising. The company has obviously got to be reasonably evil, spending lots of money lobbying for advantage against newspapers, publishers, Ma Bell etc. (I imagine that in the world of the novel, Ma Bell remains intact and provides the only 'mobile phones' 'Reach Out And Touch Someone, Even On The Go!').
(Question, what is the earliest use of the term e-mail? The online eymology dictionary amusingly has "email atype of pottery design pattern, c.1877, from Fr., lit. "enamel" (see enamel).")
