The Internet has always been a place for anonymity. A place where no-one knew who you were, where you came from, or where you were going. Those of you who choose to read this in the nude after Googling “How can I make my vacuum cleaner ‘love’ me?” would prefer that people did not know things like this. Do not worry Fat Jim, I will not tell anyone.

Then someone invented cookies. These are not biscuits (I did not think that, and anyone who says I did is lying), but tiny little files that websites put on your computer to find out stuff about you. Many are harmless, such as the ones websites like this use, to see how many people have come to visit. I used them because I like looking at the graphs. It makes me feel popular in the absence of real fan mail (this is what we in the trade call a ‘hint’).

Unfortunately, my site statistics counter of choice (Sitemeter) have recently started adding tracking cookies to their code, so when you visited here and were logged as a visitor (and added to my pretty charts), they were also putting some cookies on your computer to help people advertise to you. I did not know about this (if you want a better description of what they are doing - I do not do ‘technical’, then read this).

This is frankly not on. If anyone is going to be exploiting and making money out of my readers then it bloody well better be me. I did not receive an email from Sitemeter offering me a cut of the proceeds, and so I have removed them, and their pretty charts, from this website.

Angry I may be, but I am not unreasonable, particularly when there is money to be made, so I have offered them an olive branch.

Dear Sitemeter,

Hello from the Internet! I am sure you know me. I am one of your recently unsubscribed customers.

I, like many others, have chosen to stop using your service since your deal with specificclick.net and the tracking cookies you have been installing on my website visitors’ computers.

Let me be clear about this, if there is money to be made from the shite that I write on a daily basis, then I want in.

I think that in the circumstances a 50/50 split would not be unreasonable. I know for a fact that some of my readers have money (at least one of them drives a cabriolet and another one has two houses), so I’m sure you and your advertising cohorts would like to get their grubby little hands on them (or their computers - I do not think you are into that kind of thing yet).

Well, now you can. At a price. And that price is 50% of whatever you are making from them (for clarification).

I look forward to hearing from you with details of my cut, at which point I will reinstall your tracking code.

Kind regards,

Mr Angry.

I will let you all know if they get back to me. Maybe.