According to the international privacy watchdog Privacy International, Google is to online privacy what deaf maiden aunts are to hospital waiting room indiscretion. Wholly unfamiliar.

Sneak, who uses the firms' Gmail email service, is well aware that occasionally it feels like Google is peeking a little too closely at his conversations and browsing habits. In a typical day he is offered advertisements from anything to baseball caps for dogs, to space urinals for ladies to use.

He is not sure precisely what element of his life these ad machines are sniffing into, but he is damn sure that he is going to start washing himself a bit more thoroughly before using his email from here on in.