Lileks: These cookies aren't very sweet

No one talks about it, but we're all annoyed by it. You now must have a Personal Internet Cookie Strategy. You have to think about website cookies seven times a day. Sites that used to let you breeze on in now throw up a box, requiring your input on the whole Cookie Situation.

Imagine if every store at the mall had someone at the front entrance meeting you with a plate of Oreos, and you had to accept them before you could go inside. "But I don't want to accept them. I'd just like to go on in."

"No! Your input is required! But you can customize your cookie experience. You can reject the chocolate part and accept the creamy filling, or you can reject the filling while accepting the chocolate. You cannot reject the Necessary Oreo, though. I'll stand here and watch while you twist the Oreo open and scrape off the filling, if you like."

When you leave the store 15 minutes later, you discover there's Oreo gunk in your molars and Oreo crumbs in your pocket, and you think: "Oh, that must have been the Necessary Oreo."

Why? Why are we now beset by the imperatives of cookie management?

The websites would like you to think they had a sudden conversion on the Road to Damascus, and now they are deeply and sincerely concerned about your privacy. Which is amusing, coming from the guys who set up cameras every six feet along the Road to Damascus.

"We value your privacy," they always say. OK. Suppose I come to you and say, "I value your privacy! Also, I want to put this small camera up your nose, and it'll take movies when you're in the changing room at the Gap or the bathroom or even shopping at the grocery store."

They value our privacy, eh. That's why they would like to dump a cookie on your computer that records where you came from, where you go on the site, where you go after you leave, what type of computer and browser you have, where you are sitting right now, what you had for lunch, whether there's another cookie on your computer from a travel site so they can sell your info to a company that makes personalized luggage tags embossed with the Vikings logo because they also can see you went to the sports page of the newspaper, and so on.

Why wouldn't you want an ad from the luggage tab people? Why wouldn't you want your advertising experience enhanced and maximized? Who among us has not stood outside in the dark of the night, raged against an indifferent cosmos and demanded more targeted advertising? "I was on the internet for an hour, and my ads weren't enhanced at all! Do I even exist?"

Most people just hit "Accept," and go on. If you decide to be suspicious — and you always should be suspicious — you will see that you have choices. To the harried eye, they look like this:

• Disable tracking cookies. Y/N (Oh, by all means, no! Follow me around and take notes and sell my info to Chinese ball-bearing manufacturers.)

• Enable Granular Retronkulation. Y/N (You're confused by this because you don't know if your privacy is protected or surrendered. Maybe you should just go with general retronkulation?)

At this point, you hit "reject all," except you can't. You have to agree to Necessary Cookies.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you that there is no such thing as necessary cookies. This is like saying that when you enter the grocery store, the management absolutely has to put a carrot in your pants. What? Why? "To ensure a compatible environment."

That doesn't make sense. Try again. Why did you stick a carrot down my pants? "To maximize interconnected commerce variables." No, that's gibberish.

Again: Why did you jam an orange tapered vegetable down my pants? "Because we want to, and you don't have a choice if you want to be in the store."

Why is this suddenly a problem? Long story, but the short version: laws. Proactive "privacy enhancement" laws from Europe, the California Consumer Privacy Act and perhaps companies seeing what's coming and deciding to look responsible. Whatever the reasons, the result is an endless series of pointless clicking, and it gets in the way of what you really want to do.