The convenience made possible by the internet, or the privacy of staying offline? This seems to be an increasingly pressing question for a large percentage of us. Dalrymple reads his emails and online ads and considers the tradeoffs at the Salisbury Review:

These e-mails are obviously targeted: I doubt that many 20 year-old receive offers of cheap funeral insurance, for example. Computers everywhere know that I am about to receive my old age pension and will quite possibly need urological treatment before burial. Where did they get this information from? From other computers, of course, not doubt some of them governmental. It is all technically admirable but somewhat disturbing.