And when advertisers start to follow us, our privacy, our right to be left alone will be severely compromised, he thinks.

BBC: Big Brother is watching you shop

His local story becomes a cross-section of national attitudes, values, and principles, and comically dramatizes a paradox: as freedoms guaranteed by law are upheld in court, the private becomes glaringly public and the personal political, at the risk of what may be the most basic right of all, to be left the hell alone.

NEWYORKER: Citizen Ruth

Talk about a right-to-be-left-alone effort backfiring.

FORBES: No E-mail About Your Borders' Shopping History Being Sold? (Or, How Privacy Protection Measures Can Backfire)

If neither centre-right nor centre-left can win a governing majority alone, almost certainly there would be moves to form a grand coalition between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats.

ECONOMIST: The race begins