I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy nut but i do think it goes far beyond just the worldly aspect of money and control and into the spiritual realm of control. It is a system that satan can attempt to use to control the world. With all the things that we see Bill Gates getting into these days and supporting that are outside the realm of Microsoft I have few doubts as to this being true.
Brother,
There's reports from reputable sources all over the Internet, so it definitely isn't related to "conspiracy nut" stuff. There's real problems in long lists, but I haven't searched for the specific information you mentioned. Nothing would surprise me. I had a dual boot to choose from Linux or XP for a time, and I now have nothing but Linux on my machine. For many reasons, I decided that I had to have complete independence, and I DO have that now. Linux is getting more friendly by the day. I didn't enjoy changing everything, but I think that it's going to be well worth it.