It’s been said dozens of ways that the Net decentralizes and democratizes communications (a favorite is The Wealth of Networks). One of the prominent consequences is that companies are losing control of their brands, sometimes to their advantage, sometimes not.

In twelve hours I was struck by three examples of the decentralization of power, none of them a new story in itself, but as a set interesting in illustrating that the “brand” issue applies equally well to geopolitics, national politics, and a net-based business.

First, on this week’s episode of 24, the Vice President Otherwise Known as Cheney orders a nuclear strike against a Middle Eastern state although there is no evidence that the Middle Eastern nation has anything to do with the catastrophes that are befalling the U.S.—a collection of non-state actors is responsible. The state had lost control over the actions and intent attributed to it. (It would be nice if this were fiction.)

Second, a mashup Apple’s 1984 Superbowl ad and Hillary Clinton’s words and videos has been watched 2.8 million times. The final image features the Obama campaign’s website. The Obama campaign denied having anything to do with the video. Is this loss of control good or bad for him? Can’t tell yet. It’s been good for the Huffington Post and the person who made “Vote Different,” whose statement is here.

Third, MySpace, trying to maintain economic control, may lose the value of what it’s controlling. MySpace worried that entrepreneurs like Tila Tequila (famous for linking to 7 milllion friends) were using MySpace to make money that MySpace had meant to keep for itself. Tequila posted a widget allowing fans to download her music and pay her money, so MySpace management banned the use of this kind of software. So Tila and others are talking of moving on to the next venue.

The Times quoted Justin Goldberg, chief executive of Indie911 saying, “We find it incredibly ironic and frustrating that a company that has built its assets on the back of its users is turning around and telling people they can’t do anything that violates terms of service. Why shouldn’t they call it FoxSpace? Or RupertSpace?”

Continuing, the article cited Fred Wilson, a New York VC: “Every attempt everyone has ever made to try to dictate what a person’s Internet experience will be has ended up coming up empty.”

These three examples are skirmishes randomly selected by their contemporaneity from the battle between traditional expectations of control over reputations, information, products themselves, and the decentralization of power mediated by networks. Walt Wriston, former Chairman of Citicorp, pointed out in 1992 that as the world’s money markets became connected, nations would lose control of their money supplies.

Now that the world not only relies on, but pretty much behaves like, the Net, the kind of control that states, leaders, and companies have assumed in the past is disappearing just about everywhere. We’d better start changing that assumption.