Cookies and Spam

It is inevitable.
It is in your mailbox and your inbox.
Junk mail.

Catalogs arrive even though you never requested them.
Brochures, advertisements, and coupons that look more important than they really are.
Sometimes the throw away pile is larger than the actual mail pile.

It happens with your email as well.
Spam is unsolicited bulk email.
Nearly identical messages are sent to numerous recipients through their email.
If you click on a spam link you may be sent to phishing web sites that host malware.

So much goes on beneath the surface.
Unsuspecting users may click on something that looks legitimate.
Their account may be compromised.

How can something look so real?
How can so much be going on behind the scenes?
How can we protect ourselves?

My oldest daughter is a web designer.
Her knowledge is leagues beyond the average person.
She is my go-to person for my questions.

How can something I just searched for come up as an ad on the side of my page?
Cookies, Mom.
I assume she didn’t mean the kind we bake.

She meant an HTTP cookie, known as a browser cookie.
It is a piece of data stored in a user’s web browser while a person is on that website.
It notifies the website of the user’s activity.

Tracking cookies and third-party tracking cookies are used to compile long-term records.
Records of the person’s browsing history are stored with the browser in the computer.
When the person goes back to the website, the person will be recognized.

All of that goes on behind the scenes when you are innocently looking for an item.
Your search is used to compile your own personal advertisements.
The process still amazes me.

In essence, I am leaving a cyber fingerprint wherever I go.
I cannot hide.
Everything I do, everything I search for, is known.

O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in – behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to You; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to You. For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:1-16)

Not a hint of tracking cookies.
Just a Sovereign God who watches over us.
A loving God who knows our comings and goings.
A merciful God who keeps His eye on those He loves.

An omniscient God who knows our thoughts before we do.
No tracking device needed here.
Just a loving Father, Creator, Sustainer, and Guide.

Companies and web browsers have to mimic what God can already do.
Companies and web browsers are concerned with the bottom line.
Our Sovereign God watches over us simply because He loves us.

Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23,24)

To be searched and known by an all-loving God is a wonderful thing!
God has no agenda; no bottom line He has to protect.
God simply loves us.
God is love.

Love watches over and protects.
Love knows all about the object it loves.

Oh, to be searched and known by God.
Simply wonderful.