Watching over your shoulder

Did you ever get the feeling someone’s watching you? Ever get the feeling someone is following you? Well, someone is. As Jack Paar once put it, “Even paranoid people can have enemies.” Now, the folks keeping tabs on you are not necessarily enemies — unless you count people who are trying to lure you into buying something as enemies. It suddenly dawned on us that when we innocently click on something that is for sale on the internet, oftentimes the next website we visit has an advertisement for that item. Most recently we noticed this happenstance after we had browsed an e-book on Amazon.com. The next website we went to (another Hawaii newspaper, by the way) had an Amazon ad touting the book we’d clicked on. Hmm . . . not exactly the National Security Agency keeping tabs on us, but, still, someone is tracking us across the internet. So, by simply using the internet, one is giving up a degree of privacy. It is interesting that these tracking companies feel they have the right to do this, because the last we checked those companies don’t own the internet. Nobody does. This probably is not a startling revelation to you readers. Still, it is nice to keep in mind that somebody is watching over your shoulder as you browse your favorite websites. If one is known by the company he keeps, it’s at least nice to know you have company.