PLEASE PASS THE COOKIES

Sunday afternoons are a strange phenomena. 

It's a time for spiritual solitude from the excessive consumption of cosmopolitan capitalism.

Disrobing to the displeasure of most of the local wildlife, my jolly neighbour and former advertising sales guru at radio 2UPU, Nigel Knobb, heads into an oceanic cocktail of whipped-cream for a few strokes around the heads of Crown Jewel Point.. 

This inevitably results in nearby illegal Japanese trawlers mistaking Nigel for a beached whale. 

Adjusting the speed (not speedos) and technique of his strokes, my fearless pal's flexible freestyle made returning to shore a sure thing. 
  
Celebrating the fact that his rump survived another round of near-misses with a single-flue head harpoon, he and his sheila do the Big Brother bum dance near a tribe of snobs in the hope that they'll feature in the next day's edition of Celebrity Confidential.

Some people just can't let go of their high-profiles and sadly, Nigel, is a member of that collective.  

So far, no luck. It seems the waiting list to get favourable mention in the tabloids is longer than that of any metropolitan public hospital. 

But I digress. "Carry on, Columbus!", you scream.

Nigel and I then head off for another ritual feast at our local Chinese restaurant, U Bi Dim, to heap more praise on the fighting human spirit that has preserved able souls such as he to continue surviving the battle of the high seas. 

As an hour of leisurely laughs combined with honey-soy chicken, a bottle of french plonk and the occassional bout of feortan draws to a close, my waiter insists I open my  complimentary fortune cookie.

Waiter: Mr Cartonne, it bad luck not to read your fortune
Me: But I'm already fortunate enough. I've had a long-career writing about Nigels.  
Waiter: But u deserve more luck, you very good customer.
Me: Oh, I get it. This is your subtle way of telling me I forgot to tip you. Well, okay. Here's a tip; Don't eat the pork and plum sauce, it'll give you the shits for a week. 
Waiter: No, I already have da shits. Mother-in-law living with me for week. Perhaps I need fortune cookie too.

Eventually I succumb to his superstition and rip to shreds the cookie batter. 'What blessing will I be told today?', I ask myself.

'You will have more sex this week'
'Times are changing. And you should change your underwear'
'Happy wife equals clean house. You will buy new house to find happyness.'

Alas, I get none of the above. Instead I am dealt the following forecast:

At any moment on any given day, your interests and online viewing preferences will be tapped into by a data exchange and sold in bulk to advertisers who will then send you information related to your browsers viewing habits.

This detailed pathway into the future was eventually confirmed as correct by the Sydney Morning Herald on October 5 in a special report compiled by Technology reporter, Nicky Phillips, titled "Inside the cookie monster - trading your online data for profit.

We learned that our online data pertaining to what we search via our web browsers is being tracked without our permission and/or knowledge by advertisers and data collectors using what is best described as 'covert devices'. 

That's right. Our children need to sign permission slips to go on excursions to the Zoo but technical giraffes in large corporations are allowed to go for a cyber-walk in our homes without knocking on the door.  

That's because they climb through our WINDOWS.  

 The devices used to avoid basic manners such as asking our permission, take the form of cookies, beacons and flash cookies.

Cookies are the small text files that are loaded onto a user's computer. Beacons are tiny invisible graphics, similar to cookies, that are also used to track a person's online movement.

Any website requiring Adobe Flash videos may use these cookies. However these are easily deleted by visiting the Adobe Website.


Cookies are managed by the web browser and therefore you can set your web browser to not accept third-party cookies. Beacons are a different story. They can't be deleted and are not run on your computer.

You can however opt out of being tracked by publishers, advertisers and date collectors by visiting the National Advertising initiative's opt-out page. 

A word of warning to my Generation Y friends. If you do opt to block all cookies from all websites on Internet Explorer, you will not be able to access entry to your facebook profile. How you'll cope, is utterly unimaginable. 
  
This story raises a number of interesting issues for future consideration by our nation's brightest journalists, academics, writers, consumers, business folk, politicians and other esteemed airheads.  

• Privacy. Where does it begin and end on the internet?
• How often are the self-regulatory policies of e-commerce firms reviewed by an independent, external source?
• Who can copyright the information collected? 
•  Is not the consumer who owns the information vehicle that examines what is online via a subscription service paid for by the individual or group within the household entitled to be an automatic shareholder in the business profiteering off our interests?
• Should governments set-up hotlines run by volunteers  to help the privileged and those dialing the wrong number to have their cookies stamped "private" by their Internet Services Providers?
• Will the next free-trade agreement include eliminating tariffs for hackers?
• Find out if our governments really believe in equal-rights by testing the acceptability levels of consumers who also covertly implant rogue tracking cookies without authorisation into the computers of advertising companies. 

Remember this scene in Seinfeld:

TEL: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service.
JERRY: Oh, gee, I can't talk right now. Why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later. 
TEL: Uh, I'm sorry we're not allowed to do that.
JERRY: Oh, I guess you don't want people calling you at home.
TEL: No.
JERRY: Well now you know how I feel. [Hangs up]
 
I wonder if the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy will allow computer consumers to wear the other shoe just for a day and start collecting unfettered data on corporations. I have grave doubts.

Am I cooking up a storm about this? Maybe. 

The last-time I checked, people were willing to help companies with product management by way of focus groups. 

This is where a group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging and then get PAID for providing commercially beneficial information (CBI).

But now the advertising world and its associates want the same type of data and insight minus the obligation to give as well as take.

If our information holds a currency value to focus groups, the same law of give and take should apply to the data collectors who are obviously very shy or just sneaky. 

Whilst I wouldn't trade my information for monopoly money, I'd re-consider becoming an information consultant for the right price, say, a buy 1 cheap, boring DVD, get another 1 free for your mother-in-law voucher at any of the major retail chains.                                                                                                                                                                     
While we wait for the Geoffrey Robertson's of the world to take a closer look at the ethics or lack of in regards to self-regulated corporate cyber shenanigans, I'm going to head to my pantry for another cookie. 

At least if I spill any crumbs, no tech-head can find out what type of biscuits I eat and then send me 10 million pieces of junk mail featuring more junk food I shouldn't be eating if I want to make it to one-hundred.