But as you probably know (or suspect), all the major search engines have the ability to compile, store, and cross-link that kind of data. And though they don’t make the data public, there’s no assurance it will never be accessed.

Case in point: In 2006, the U.S. Justice Department subpoenaed the search data of Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo to help defend a pornography law. Google managed to resist, but the others buckled under pressure and turned over their records.

When the story hit the news, it raised public awareness of what Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has called “a ticking privacy time bomb.” And it triggered a surge of interest in ways to protect anonymity online.

One of the most popular solutions has been TrackMeNot, a privacy shield that’s been downloaded more than half a million times since that infamous Justice Department case. It works by generating a stream of random queries, making it impossible to “profile” searchers based on their search history. Your “actual Web searches, lost in a cloud of false leads, are essentially hidden in plain view.”

Interesting, right?

And guess what? As a subscriber to ETR, you’ve got your own built-in TrackMeNot.

Let me explain…

As ETR’s senior editor, I do a lot of fact checking – which means I do lots of Internet searches as part of my job. But beyond that, in every issue of ETR, I find references to all kinds of things that that I want to know more about. And I bet you do too.

I’m not talking about the main ideas covered by the articles. You get everything you need to know about them right there in the issue. I’m talking about intriguing little mentions of people… places… books… historic events. That kind of thing.

Just in the last few weeks, for instance, something you read in ETR might have inspired you to look up such offbeat subjects as Sammy Davis Jr.’s book Why Me?… the difference between right brain and left brain thinking… “dark matter”… old bodybuilding ads… discount ad networks… what people with head injuries have in common with Alzheimer’s patients… the history of toothbrushes… and Nicaraguan cigars.

Can’t get more diverse than that.

Anyone looking to profile us based on our search history hasn’t got a chance.

By the way, I’m curious. What kinds of things has ETR inspired you to learn more about? Let me – and your fellow ETR readers – know right here.

Here’s the story…

One of the things on my brother’s birthday wish list was a pair of jeans. He’s hard to fit, but there is a brand/style he’s been wearing for years. Unfortunately, that style has been discontinued. So I thought I’d try my luck to see if I could find it online.

A few clicks of the mouse, and Eureka! A vendor on eBay had not one but three pair of the exact jeans I was looking for. I bought all three, paid for them via PayPal with a MasterCard, and patted myself on the back for being such a smart shopper (and thoughtful sister).

The jeans arrived promptly, and I immediately gave the seller “positive feedback” on the eBay website.

I should have waited. My brother was thrilled with the jeans… but one pair didn’t fit. They were enormous. Clearly the wrong size, but mismarked on the label.

Here’s where the first caveat comes in: Not all eBay vendors are established, professionally operated businesses. Some are just folks who get their hands on some merchandise and make a few extra bucks by selling it. There’s nothing wrong with that – except most of them don’t really have a policy in place for handling customer service complaints. And when a problem arises, the customer is not automatically “always right.”

Had I bought the jeans from a major online retailer, there would have been no question. I could have returned them for a refund or exchange, even if they hadn’t been mismarked. But the small-potatoes vendor I bought them from refused to do that, saying “I do not accept returns unless I made a mistake, which I did not.” She had bought the jeans “on a final closeout sale from a specialty shop that went out of business.” She couldn’t return them, but that shouldn’t have been my problem. Unfortunately, it was.

I had already blown my first recourse by prematurely giving her positive feedback on eBay. So I took the only other avenue open to me and filed a dispute with PayPal. But I didn’t stop there. I filed a dispute with my credit card company, too.

That’s the second caveat: PayPal does an excellent job of resolving disputes, but don’t rely solely on them. Things can happen that are outside of PayPal’s control. So wear a belt and suspenders. In addition to working with Pay Pal, you can – and should – contact your credit card company directly about any charge to your account that you disagree with. Had I not done that, I would have been out $60.

Briefly, here’s what happened: PayPal investigated, and the seller agreed to issue a refund upon receiving the merchandise. I sent it off via certified mail, return receipt requested, and waited. And waited. And waited. For some reason, it took almost a month to reach its destination. (That’s an example of what I meant when I said “Things can happen that are outside of PayPal’s control.”) When it arrived, the seller refused delivery, presumably taking advantage of the fact that the time limit PayPal had given me for returning the merchandise had expired. Meanwhile, as far as PayPal was concerned, my case was closed.

But as far as MasterCard was concerned, the case was still open. They had issued a conditional credit as soon as I reported the problem. And finally, finally, finally – four months later – I received this from them in the mail: “Great News! Our investigation is now complete and we are pleased to inform you that the conditional credit you received for $60 is now permanent.”

The belt broke, but the suspenders held.

[Ed. Note: Have you ever had a customer service "issue" with an eBay vendor? How did you resolve it? In hindsight, is there any way you could have avoided the problem? Share your experience - and advice - with your fellow ETR readers here.]

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Michael Masterson has been encouraging ETR readers to simplify their business lives for years. “If you think it will mean making less money, enjoying less success, maybe even being less effective as a businessperson,” Michael told us, “think again. It’s about having more – not less – of the good things. More productivity. More passion. More meaning, love, friendship, and serenity.”

And in a two-part article for ETR, Charlie Byrne told us how he and his wife applied this concept to their personal lives – by not only finding a way to get rid of the “stuff” closing in on them,  but also by figuring out a way to profit from it (in more ways than one).

Now Dave Bruno, a 37-year-old Web editor, has taken this idea to an extreme. He has challenged himself to live with no more than 100 personal possessions for an entire year – though he’s made a few exceptions. (Underwear and socks, for example. Each of these categories counts as one thing. And he’s keeping “one library” of books.)

“The 100 Thing Challenge is a personal project,” says Dave, “a way for me to fight consumerism. What’s behind it? My belief that material possessions can be good when they serve a greater purpose than possession alone. We should make better use of our things than just owning them. My hope is that by living a year with 100 personal things, I’ll be able to show that an average American guy does not need tons of stuff to live the good life.”

To find out more about Dave’s “100 Thing Challenge,” check out his website (guynameddave.com).

And in case you’re wondering… yes, he is going to write a book about it.

But we’re more interested in you than in how Dave is going to make money from his “experiment.” We want to know what you’ve done to simplify your life as a result of what you’ve learned from ETR. How has it changed the way you think? How has it changed the way you work? How has it helped you reach your goals? Let us know by posting your comments here.

We had no money for lights or other decorations – but, hey, it was Christmas Eve! And we were in the middle of the Rocky Mountains (both of us working toward masters degrees at the University of Idaho). “We are surrounded by evergreens – Christmas trees more magnificent than anything you can buy!” we said. “How hard could it be to chop one of them down?”

We checked to make sure it was legal (it was) – and out we went into the snow, armed with a borrowed ax.

We searched. And we searched. And we searched.

“There’s one!”

We made a beeline for it… only to find, as we approached, that it was at least 20 feet tall.

“There’s a little one over there!”

Again, as we approached, it was enormous.

Finally, we found a “sapling” – barely nine feet.

We hacked it down (and I do mean hacked), tied it to the roof of our VW bug, and triumphantly drove it home.

Once installed in our formerly empty living room, it took on a life of its own. We trimmed it with the strings of popcorn and paper chains and “snowflakes” that we’d learned to make in kindergarten.

It filled the room – literally. And it filled the entire apartment with the fragrance and spirit of Christmas.

January came and went. February came and went. The tree still looked and smelled as fresh as it had the day we dragged it in. (That’s what you get for chopping down your own tree.)

Then it was almost Easter. It made no sense to keep the tree any longer – so, reluctantly, we dragged it to the curb and let it go. And the apartment looked even more empty than it had before.

But I still had – and have – my memories of that tree… and lots of pictures.

[Ed. Note: What's your favorite holiday memory? Let us know right here.]

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Then Alex Mandossian – Bootcamp’s official emcee – jumped on stage and kicked things off by super-charging an already charged-up audience. And he introduced a concept I’d never heard before: He told us to keep our ears open for what he called “pack-your-bags” moments. By that, he meant ideas that hit you so hard you feel that you have already learned something that was well worth the price of admission – that you could happily pack your bags right then and there and go home.

As I said, I didn’t expect to hear anything I didn’t already know. In fact, I hadn’t even bothered to bring my program notebook to that first session. But within minutes, I was grabbing for a pad of paper and a pen. And I didn’t stop scribbling down new ideas from that point forward.

Ideas like these…

• From Brian Edmondson: One big difference between traditional marketing and Internet marketing is the way you look at your competitors. With traditional marketing, they’re usually your enemies. With Internet marketing, they’re all potential partners.

• From MaryEllen Tribby: Insert space is an underutilized marketing channel. If you don’t have a physical product, you probably know someone who does. So… make a deal with them to put an insert (a brochure or other sales material) for your digital product into the fulfillment package they send to their customers.

• From Rich Schefren: Social media put you in direct contact with your market. With a blog, for example, you have a constant conversation with your buyers and prospective buyers – which can automatically turn them into a strong marketing channel for you.

And lots, lots more.

If you were at Bootcamp, you know what I’m talking about. If you weren’t, I strongly urge you to get ETR’s “Bootcamp Home Edition DVD Set“… and watch every single one. (By the way, the price goes up $200 after today, so hurry and get your order in NOW.)

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Well, if you’ve been reading the marketing articles we publish in ETR, my guess is that you look at the BOGO in a different way. Because even if you’re not a marketer, you’ve been developing a marketer’s mindset. So you understand what’s at work here. You know that the BOGO is designed to attract people with big families – the kind of people who are likely to drop well over $100 every time they go grocery shopping… and have the potential to become the store’s most profitable customers.

Retailers refer to such deals as “loss leaders,” because the merchandise is often sold at a loss in order to bring in new customers and beef up sales. (Though sometimes the retailer is able to get “specials” from their suppliers so they can at least break even.)

The loss-leader tactic is used by online marketers, too. And you’ve read about it many times in ETR. We refer to it as a “front-end” promotion. Here’s an example…

I went to the Orvis website to find a gift for Craig, my fly-fishing-fan son-in-law… and right there on the homepage was an offer I couldn’t refuse: $45 worth of flies in a nice case for only $10. Including free shipping. Click! It went right into my shopping cart. Did Orvis lose money on me? Nope. Because I didn’t stop there. I kept on shopping, and ended up going a little over budget on Craig’s gift. Plus, they now have my e-mail address, so they can keep on sending me “back-end” offers for more stuff they can make a profit on.

Here’s another example…

My brother called and told me to check out Nueske’s website. “They’ve got an unbelievable special,” he said. “Two smoked duck breasts for $9.99 – with free shipping.” Wow! Their duck breasts usually go for $14.99. Not only that, but shipping on any perishable item is high – a minimum of $7.95 at Nueske’s – because it has to go in a Styrofoam container with freezer packs.

Again, it was a deal I couldn’t refuse. And it was such a good deal, not only did I order one for myself, I also sent one to my son and one to my daughter. Did Nueske’s lose money on me? Yup, I think they did. But now they’ve added me, my son, and my daughter to their e-mail list – three more people who are interested in the specialty products they sell. And there’s a good chance they’ll more than make up for that initial loss by making profitable back-end sales to all three of us in the future.

When you look at offers like these with your marketer’s mindset, you have an “insider’s” perspective on the tactics being used to attract you as a customer – and an inside track on being able to recognize really great bargains.

So keep reading those ETR articles. And not just because we keep urging you to get into the marketing side of whatever business you’re in (because that’s where the money is). Keep reading them because they’re turning you into a very well-informed shopper.

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Her main job was to drill basic grammar into us.

“A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing,” we repeated… over and over again.

“A verb is an action word,” we repeated… over and over again.

To burn prepositions into our brains, she had us memorize something that started like this:

With, on, for, after, at, by, in,

Against, instead of, near, between.

Through, out, from, under, down below,

To, over, up, according to.

(Does anyone out there remember the rest of this?)

But Miss Zimmer had taken on a second mission. “No blue jeans in my class,” she commanded.

Huh?

“If you come to class dressed for play, you will play,” she insisted. “If you come to class dressed for work, you will work.”

I can’t imagine a teacher making such a dictum in this day and age. But back then, we (and our parents) bowed down.

Was she was right?

Many business-success experts would agree with her. They would tell you that even when you’re working at your kitchen table, you should forget the sweats and baggy jeans.

But, hey! One of the benefits of working at home – one that we often mention when encouraging you to start your own Internet business – is that you don’t have to “dress up.”

Yes, you always want to look professional when networking or meeting with a client or potential partner. But when it’s just you and your computer, who cares? (And think of all the money you’ll be saving on suits and ties or dresses and heels.)

Sorry, Miss Zimmer.

[Ed. Note: The prospect of working in your jammies from your back bedroom may sound like a pipe dream... but it's easier to achieve than you think. Join us in Florida this November when a dozen of the best Internet marketers in the world will be revealing exactly how you can start and grow your own home-based Internet business. You'll be working in your sweatpants in no time...]

Her main job was to drill basic grammar into us.

“A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing,” we repeated… over and over again.

“A verb is an action word,” we repeated… over and over again.

To burn prepositions into our brains, she had us memorize something that started like this:

With, on, for, after, at, by, in,

Against, instead of, near, between.

Through, out, from, under, down below,

To, over, up, according to.

(Does anyone out there remember the rest of this?)

But Miss Zimmer had taken on a second mission. “No blue jeans in my class,” she commanded.

Huh?

“If you come to class dressed for play, you will play,” she insisted. “If you come to class dressed for work, you will work.”

I can’t imagine a teacher making such a dictum in this day and age. But back then, we (and our parents) bowed down.

Was she was right?

Many business-success experts would agree with her. They would tell you that even when you’re working at your kitchen table, you should forget the sweats and baggy jeans.

But, hey! One of the benefits of working at home – one that we often mention when encouraging you to start your own Internet business – is that you don’t have to “dress up.”

Yes, you always want to look professional when networking or meeting with a client or potential partner. But when it’s just you and your computer, who cares? (And think of all the money you’ll be saving on suits and ties or dresses and heels.)

Sorry, Miss Zimmer.

[Ed. Note: The prospect of working in your jammies from your back bedroom may sound like a pipe dream... but it's easier to achieve than you think. Join us in Florida this November when a dozen of the best Internet marketers in the world will be revealing exactly how you can start and grow your own home-based Internet business. You'll be working in your sweatpants in no time...]

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I would choose a different collection each time. Medieval. Renaissance. Impressionism. Nineteenth-century portraits. Modern/contemporary. Jennifer, Morgan, and I would go to one room of one exhibit and park ourselves in front of one painting – usually the biggest or the smallest. (Kids like extremes.)

We’d look at it for a while.

“Do you like it?” I’d ask.

Whether the answer was yes or no, the follow-up question was the same: “Why?” And we’d consider the possibilities. (Sometimes, we even gathered a small group of people who joined in.)

As you might expect from a five-year-old and a nine-year-old, their observations were pretty straightforward:

“I like/don’t like the colors,” Jennifer might say. “They make me feel happy/ sad/ jumpy/ creepy.”

“Why is the sky so big/small?” Morgan might ask.

“It looks like it’s not finished on the bottom.”

“I wonder why she’s holding that book.”

Though deceptively simple, questions like these are basic to understanding a work of art – and they aren’t necessarily easy to answer. I didn’t even try. I’d just say, “What do you think?” And after listening to the ideas my children came up with – and encouraging them to keep talking – I always walked out of there feeling like I knew a lot more about art than I did when I walked in.

The lesson: If it’s in a museum, it’s almost certainly a worthwhile piece of art. And even if you don’t like it, there’s a reason for every decision that was made by the artist. To use those muddy colors, for example… to paint the sky as a barely visible strip at the top of the canvas… to have the paint fall off the top edge of the canvas or not quite make it to the bottom… to place that particular book of verse in that elegant lady’s hand.

So look at art through the eyes of a child, instead of the eyes of a critic, and try to figure out why the artist did what he or she did – especially the things that bother or confuse you. You’ll teach yourself more than you can learn from any book or course.

[Ed. Note: If you've never done it before, take a good, long look at a piece of artwork today... in a museum, in a book, or on your own wall. Then share something about it that you find especially interesting - right here.]

And so he did. Every day, he’d sit down at his computer and bang out an issue. I’d give it a quick once-over and send it off to be posted. And that was that. But not for long…

ETR grew in size as well as scope. From one article per issue to two, three, and four. From five days a week to six to seven. Then Michael started to write about other subjects he was enthusiastic about – health and fitness, wine, art, books, travel. “Word to the Wise” was born. And he brought in “guest” writers to talk about their own areas of expertise.

With Michael, one idea leads to another and another and then another. And before you know it, an e-zine that was initially sent to a few thousand people has about 400,000 subscribers… 30 employees… and dozens of profitable spin-off products.

The change was gradual but constant. If you scan through the ETR Archives, you’ll see what I mean.

ETR may look a whole lot different now than it did at the beginning, but one thing has never changed: This e-zine is fueled by feedback from our readers. And you can tell how important your input is, because we make it so easy for you to communicate with us.

* If you like – or dislike – a particular article, tell us about it by clicking on the “Comment” link immediately following this article.

* If you have a question for Michael or one of ETR’s other experts, write to us at AskETR@ETRFeedback.com.

* If you have advice or information or insights to share… that’s what our SpeakOut Forum is for.

In fact, why don’t you “talk” to us right now – or at least as soon as you finish reading this issue.

We read every comment, every e-mail, and every SpeakOut post. And you can be sure that what you have to say today will help shape the future evolution of ETR.