Back from the future - whatever happened to the internet?

March 8th 2021

Ten years on from the announcement of the 'cookie monster' law that ensured that all websites that use cookies (ie. pretty much all websites) had to get explicit consent from users to track them in any way using such a thing or not track them at all, we assess the impact of the change on the world that we live in.

In 2011 the European law courts introduced a rule to restrict the use of cookies by websites to only those users that had explicitly consented to their use. So, from then on, the next time that you enter a major website - for example Google, or Amazon, or the BBC website, or the MSN network - the website had to ask you if you would allow them to collect data on your website usage using this method. It also no longer remembers your log in, who are, what it is that you like to do there. Suddenly, the internet became a mess of pop-ups, incoherent warning messages, log in boxes, confirmations, tick boxes, that seem to imply that some Big Brother was and is collecting information on their every movement. The 50% of internet users who were perhaps less savvy in how the internet works, and with it online security and privacy, suddenly became more and more concerned at what they were doing online.

Questions were being asked that hadn't been considered before: Can Bill Gates get my online banking details and make even more money for that blasted foundation of his? Will Rupert Murdoch (God rest his soul) control exactly what news that I watch to ultimately control the decisions I make throughout my day? Will the BBC start fixing sports results to suit my own browsing patterns? So is that why on whatever website I go on I get reminded of that damn dating website I created a profile on 3 years ago? Users, with some justification but only a little, suddenly became scared. A fear set in that they were being controlled by the internet, by the websites, when all along they thought they were the ones in control.

Of course, fear is exactly what the governments, multi national news corporations, massive online retailers and everyone else has striven for for years. Fear of something different. Fear of not knowing the truth. Fear of the truth. Fear of not having the latest Stieg Larsson book from beyond the grave (and what a great prank that turned out to be, 24 books later). Fear of not owning the latest Coldplay collaboration with Jim Morrison or Elvis or Har Mar Superstar. Fear of not having the T-Shirt, trainers, football shirt that you are told will make you look, like, well sexy. Fear of not meeting the right person to go on a couple of awkward dates, sleep with out of politeness and then ignore until they stop calling/texting/Facebooking you. Fear of not knowing that the kid you used to sit next to in bottom set RE like pancetta. But fear of the internet?



Fast forward to present day. What has happened to that omnipotent, all-pervading, unspeakably influential force of the internet? A whole industry had sprung up before that moment, and entire towns in the south of England had transformed their main industries from whatever quaint, twee rubbish it was before to the making and managing of profitable, fun, useful, interesting websites. Those towns are now without industry or hope, and have shrivelled into empty hulls of trendy office buildings which are now squats for those displaced by the crash - the poor web developers, marketers or content writers with only 2:2 degrees, network disconnected HTC Desires and an item or 2 of ripped holey knitwear to show for those glory years of the 'Noughties'. There they smoke roll ups and desperately save the last of the South Asian beer that they drank on their gap year and then excitedly found in Waitrose before it all happened.

Where is the internet in our lives now? It's still there of course - governments still use it to pass on information to each other, but since they can't use it to inform their citizens of anything they've had to resort to employing buskers to provide the latest directives and laws to citizens - since everyone forgot all the songs that were stored on their Spotify accounts it's the only music there is. Internet soup kitchens exist in every neighbourhood, but since no-one can remember their log in details for anything they are mostly empty and used in the main to play Hearts. The Inland Revenue, of course, still has its massive cumbersome website which everyone must use by law to record their earnings and taxes but as no-one can everyone is fined an average of £10000 a year which they don't go on to pay...

There's other wreckage of course. Boarded up Amazon shops litter every block on the high street, boxes of celebrity autobiographies blowing into the wind. The word 'Google' now solely refers to the verb of trying to bowl a particularly unusual type of ball in the new kind of street cricket played by bloggers using words and random thoughts. The BBC now has all the money it could ever want and nothing to do with it. Bill Gates is now being cared for by his own foundation.

As we drift towards a Wellsian utopia can we reflect on that one day 10 years ago where it all changed for the worse? Or is this in fact an opportunity for our culture, our society as a whole to develop again, to find a new path that is more real and less reliant on an imaginary world which we create for ourselves? One where the guy we buy our books from knows what he's talking about, one where we make the effort to go and see friends we haven't seen for ages instead of some single perfunctory remark on a website on their birthday, one where we ask and discuss and learn in a social environment where we may not have all the information but that makes us feel good about ourselves.

Now is our chance United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, France and Estonia, NOW is our chance to move on from being a technology-led society of individuals to a people-led society of friends. This is my plan, this is my proposal to YOU, the people.

If only there was actually anyone online to read it....