Y'all probably have heard of the supercookie by now, or the "evercookie," as its developer calls it, a name destined to die an early death. The supercookie was developed by hacker Samy Kamkar, who in 2005 took down MySpace, which is, I would think, more a venial sin than a mortal one.

Simultaneously with the supercookie comes HTML5, a new program that will allow advertisers and other other interested parties (like, say, prospective employers or the government) to track your online movements, purchases, locations if you are browsing the Web from a mobile device, e-mails and photographs for weeks or months back. No tools currently are available to counteract HTML5. It may be that HTML5 will be able to find the supercookies, but it may not.

It's a giant game of hide-and-seek, played out on your computer. Doesn't that seem like fun?

The only way a user could effectively neutralize HTML5 is to never buy anything using a Web advertisement. That means advertisements on sites you "trust," because trust is what closes in New Haven, as George S. Kaufman once said.

But I don't think anyone will bother. I think the game will go on and on, with HTML6 and "super duper cookie" somewhere on the horizon, and very soon it will turn out that the very most efficient way to surf, text, talk, view and buy will involve a chip planted in your head. And a lot of folks would say, "Yes, I want the iPhone in my brain" (hands-free driving!), and then we will become perfect consumers, getting what we want instantly and talking to all our friends all the time.

In other words, except for people with something to hide and certain people worried about the political implications of all this, I don't think anyone cares. They have already given themselves over freely to the world of gizmotics; the difference between what HTML5 can do and what people think the Web can already do is not large.

Heck, people already make sex tapes of themselves. It's hard to know what's private after you've done that. Religious beliefs?

On the same day as the story about HTML5 broke, the New York Times ran a story by Alexei Barrionuevo about the scene at the San Jose mine in Chile, where 33 miners have been trapped nearly half a mile underground for two months. More than 1,000 journalists have invaded the moonscape-like territory above the mine - although "invaded" is my word because everybody seems to be having a pretty good time waiting out the miners' ordeal, which is set to end this week.

There are clowns, concerts, salesmen of sexy lingerie (for the wives of the miners when they return to the surface), nightly campfires where journalists and the relatives of miners and government officials talk to one another about pretty much everything. There are constant religious services, and at a recent Mass, the journalists were singled out for special attention and praise.

Everyone understands what a media circus will erupt when the miners finally reach daylight, and everyone is preparing for it. Some wives are asking for money for their exclusive stories and, of course, also bartering for their husband's stories. Every detail, no matter how harrowing or intimate, is apparently up for grabs. The thousand journalists are apparently happy.

Privacy does not seem to be a big concern. The government has taken a hands-off approach to the various negotiations. The journalists are not concerned because privacy, except as it is defined by the laws of the country, is not a real concern. They want a story that will tug at heartstrings around the world - as indeed it will. If you see it on TV, you'll hold back tears. Guarantee it.

We are all each other's media; we are all each other's stories. All we lack are maximally efficient transmission devices, and those are coming. Imagine, you are driving along looking at your Droid - people do this, by the way, a lot; if you're in line at a toll plaza, look at the cars around you - and there are those dirty, exhausted Chilean miners walking slowly to their loved ones, who rush forward and embrace them, children clinging to their knees - would you be thinking about their privacy? Would you be thinking about yours?

Someday you may be heartwarming. Wouldn't that be lovely?