Cookie Policy

So, this blog now also has a mention about cookies and how information is collected displayed across the top, and I have checked that it works. It is a standard notification, the way Google does it elsewhere. I used to think those were seriously annoying. Yes, I know you follow all my clicks, Internet. Every page eats my info, selling my presence. As with any other media, my eyes and my view of the content is what sells. The difference from a paper news source is that here, I also produce the content others makes money off. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, any other company that lets us produce and find content online, are making money off us both coming and going. I have known that all along.

But I have made thinking about this my life. I study, teach and research use of the Internet. It is not a trivial thing to me, quite the opposite, it is a fascinating theatre of human behaviour, a stage of love and hate, victories and pain, anger and reconciliation: all on top of a complex network of economical, military and political interests, driving increasingly sophisticated technology.

I do still get surprised by what people do online. But I no longer get surprised by my surprise. It has become a rule of thumb for me that if something can be exploited online, it will be. That includes you and me. That includes you reading something on this blog.

So yeah, there should be a cookie policy. There should be a warning that your advertising may change even if I choose not to have any on my blog. I am not making money off you. But I am convinced that your visit to my little blog here is part of Googles data collection. I am not sure what they plan to sell you afterwards. Books? Computers? Games? Gadgets to preserve your privacy online?

To help the little Internet spiders along, I will give you two suggestions.

Charles Stross has a series of alternative world Sci-Fi that I love, and which definitely follows my somewhat paranoid mood today. The Empire Games is a follow up of the Merchant Princes, and while I loved the first, the second (except where there are endless plotting scenes that I constantly fall asleep in the middle of) series feeds my surveillance paranoia.

Edited by Dale, Goggin, Leyda, McIntyre and Negra, The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness offers exactly the kind of relief from the fear, suspicion and general paranoia the Internet induces once you start asking questions. Not that it will really help in the long run, because as you will learn from this anthology, cuteness is a plot, and not only one to make you open the fridge or offer belly rubs.

Enjoy. And you are warned. Here be cookies.