Once upon a time in Thailand, I walked into a market stall selling fake watches. Well, “walked” is a generous word – the stall was the size of a chihuahua’s second home and I had to Houdini-fy my body and bend my elbows at unnatural angles in order to get one foot (admittedly, size 45) in. But squeeze in I had to – it was raining cats, dogs and fried cockroaches outside and I had to find shelter.

“Ah, you like watches,” the market stall owner beamed.

I looked around. The watches, sparkling like a constellation of ugly stars, were obviously fakes. And bad ones at that.

“I have one and it suits me just fine,” I replied, showing him my average-but-quite-expensive model.

But persistence, thy name is Thai market stall owner. So, as if by magic, he pulled a lever and, lo and behold, the back of the stall opened up, showing another, hidden section. Here, the watches were second grade fakes.

The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow- Bill Gates

Still, I wasn’t impressed. So the market stall owner moved to the back of the hidden section and pushed the shelving aside to reveal yet another hidden area where he kept what he called “genuine fakes”. Mind you, an inexperienced eye wouldn’t tell that these watches were fakes. There was just one issue: they cost as much as the real thing. And anyway, it had stopped raining outside and I don’t like haggling.

That’s just like the internet. No, not the rain or haggling but the nesting doll experience: you open a window and it burns out your retina with flashing offers of fake shoes. You close that window and yet another persistent pop-up opens, promising health and long life. And then, before you have even considered the option of whether to prolong your life online, you get carpet bombed by the good news that you have just won a billion trizillion dollars.

At the last count, the indexed web contained 2.86bn pages. Of course, it can never be the absolute last count, since every minute, approximately 571 new websites are created. Most of them are fake. There are fake restaurant reviews, fake adverts, fake products, fake profiles, and click farms whose workers are paid to click on Facebook ‘like’ and Twitter ‘follow’ buttons.

Shame on the internet? Not really. It’s just a reflection of life. Haven’t you ever been the recipient of a 32-tooth smile from someone who, the minute you walk away, proclaims you the worst human being since Emperor Nero? And haven’t you ever sought shelter from the rain in a market stall selling fake watches?

techeditor@timesofmalta.com