Google: Hiding More Cookies Than a Sorority Girl.

If you had to choose, would you consider the word "Google" to be a more of a noun or a verb?

I'm going with verb in a landslide. "Googling," which has come down the trail a couple of miles behind "xeroxing" and "spooning," has now endured the noun-to-verb reassignment surgery which can only be performed by profound public familiarity.

But here's the thing—Google, the Noun, has sprinted to within half a lap of his cousin in the wake of a $22.5 million fine for duping Safari browsers.

The Federal Trade Commission didn't exactly bring down the hammer; the amount of the monetary penalty more closely resembled being spanked by a finch feather since the massive interweb goblin's fanny pack is stuffed with forty-three billion dollars in cash.

Apparently, Google's been baking secret "cookies," small files which websites place on your computer's hard drive upon your first visit to their site.

Mmmm...I love molasses cookies.

Anyway, Google designed these cookies to not be be detected and therefore blocked, by Safari, thus enabling the mammoth search engine to gather users' personal habits and reap the clandestine benefits.

Even before the company had its hand slapped for putting the cookies back into the jar,  Google's been dodging rotten public relations tomatoes over their corporate motto, "Don't Be Evil."

What the hell kind of slogan is that? Can't you aim a just a smidge higher, Googs? How about something like "Be Nice" or ""Be Cool, Fool"? Simply requesting that employees not be evil leaves a gaping vacuum which could facilitate meanness and sneakery.

Evidently, it has.

But here's the irony for a lot of us: We worry and get angry about this assault to our privacy and we chafe at the notion of someone peddling our cyber information like a pogo stick on eBay. We're appalled at the ads we started seeing after "liking" the Shake Weight.

Then we get online and tell two-hundred-eighty-three of our best friends what our daughter says we look like in bike shorts or that we're currently enjoying the beef brisket at Dixie's barbecue in Bellevue and probably won't be home until around ten. Oh yeah, and we're really irritated that we had to peel two stickers off that nectarine from Safeway.

Google has no excuse for its hijinx. I wish it had to pay a far steeper penalty than a fine for which it can generate the funding in four hours of Internet commerce. Justice would proscribe that this corporation owes us, the Safari browsers, for its underhandedness.

So come on, Google, own up to your dishonest ways and do right by your customers rather than some faceless government agency.

Free Internet for a year might be a good starting point.

Midnight Cowboy

I'm working late. Like really late. Right now.

I'm in the employ of an online division of a sizable fashion retailer, who happens to be having its largest sale of the year beginning at midnight tonight. At ten o'clock, we will yank down our standard website, and slap up a specially branded sale site, which is expected to go live at 12AM.

Believe it or not, millions of customers anxiously await this witching hour, and many of our most popular items will sell out within minutes of the sale's inception. My job tonight is to be on hand to swap out new imagery on freshly designed pages to replace the ghosts of sold-out handbags, shoes, apparel and accessories.

Is what I do rocket science? Nope.

Do I like coming in at four in the afternoon and leaving at three in the morning? Not really.

Do I enjoy the pizza, soda, chips, cookies, red vines, cupcakes and lattes that the company provides? Yes. I do.

Do I care that they also provide fruit and veggie platters? No, I do not.

Am I going to stop asking and answering my own questions? Yes.

It's odd to be in the office when you're usually not. The cleaning people shuffle through, silently dusting and emptying. Voices carry across the cubicles, but they sound more muted, while laughter assumes a maniacal quality due to the fatigue behind it. Conversations are deeper and more meaningful, until about ten.

It feels a bit like a slumber party, where everyone's had too much sugar, except I don't remember slumber parties where my feet retained water.

So if you happen to be sitting around the house at midnight, feeling bored and under clothed, please visit our awesome website. I won't mention our name, but it does rhyme with "fordstrom got mom."