I was talking to my daughter about pillow slips the other day, I can’t even remember why, but later when I checked my phone, all these ads for pillow slips showed up. Every type of pillow slip you can imagine, I was now the prime target of an onslaught of pillow slip ads.

It’s annoying and increasingly creepy when this happens, but we shouldn't be surprised.

Sometimes I wonder if I even said a product name out loud or whether the phone is now reading my mind too.

So it was unsurprising to read a story in the Washington Post, stating that 87 percent of websites are tracking us.

If you haven’t already watched the documentary, The Social Dilemma on Netflix, you should. That was freaky enough, in regards to what guinea pigs we are on the net. Our presence there is just being mined and exploited by deep pocketed corporates for their own greed. Or worse, we’re being targeted by political and social justice groups looking to change our beliefs or influence us.

It’s all very confronting and sobering when you see what goes on behind the screens.

But this new audit by a non profit investigative journalism outfit called the Markup, shows that we are being tracked, whether we think we are or not. Whether we agree to it or not, whether we like it or not. We are being surveilled online. Even the way we type or move our mouse apparently, is being tracked.

I know there are lots of people who say, who cares, I’m not purchasing weapons online or anything dodgy, why would I care?

But actually, you should care, because it affects the way you navigate yourself online. what’s presented to you, what sites you’re guided to, what comes up in your search bar, what ads you see. There will be tailor made ads for you, your preferences may be sold to others who may target you with specific advertising, there is hidden tech taking note of how you operate every time you hit the keyboard.

The good news is there are privacy checks, spy software and ad blockers that you can plug in to try to stop much of this, but the bulk of us wouldn’t have the time, inclination or know-how to do this, so we’re basically putty in the nets hands.

And especially when we’re on social media.

Yes we can ask for better from these big platforms like Facebook and Google and Twitter, but don’t hold your breath on them changing their business model. That ship's sailed.

We can take back our own control by deleting many of these apps, but pretty much everyone’s going to use Google.

So I guess for as long as we’re relying on the net to give us info, we can also expect the net’s going to be taking info off us too while we’re at it.