Not Oreos, Chips Ahoy or any of the Pepperidge Farm variety.

The cookies I am referencing are those that live on your computer. And, just like those of us who might have to hide the chocolate, highly caloric variety and then try to remember where we might have stashed them, you'll need the same brain exhausting maneuver to locate the cookies on your computer to make them go away as well.

Why, you might be wondering, do you need to find these cookies and make them disappear?

It seems that each and every time you do a search on your computer these "cookies" store the information. This, in turn gives access to marketers to track and profile you for future ads. There are a myriad of terms for this activity, the one I came across most often is Behavioral Marketing.

So how do you feel about going to your mail in box and finding email messages that are offering you insurance quotes? After all, yesterday you were on Insurance.com, weren't you? Alternatively, a really accidental "look see" at a gun site could mark you as someone who could join a hunting expedition with Sarah Palin (since she is free to go off on a moose shooting spree just about any ol' time she wants).

Anyway, Congress is apparently looking into this "tracking practice" as it seems there is a slippery slope in the areas of privacy, confidentiality and the like.

In the meantime, I suspect that you, like me, as it relates to cookies, know that they are out there, need to be mindful of the consequences (chubbette) if you find one variety; or totally exposed for the world to know about you (big brother IS watching) for the other.