I was listening to an old episode of one of my favorite NPR shows and podcasts, Radio Lab. The topic was how we choose and it featured a fascinating and highly disturbing story that has relevance to anyone involved in the Internet today.

It turns out that in the world of gambling, the casino chain Harrah’s is the undisputed leader. The reason? All visitors must first join a “loyalty” program. Since signing up grants the gambler a nice credit of a few bucks, no one says no. Once you get your card, you have to insert it in the slot machine whenever you want to play.

What happens next is that Harrah’s tracks everything you do at the slots – how long you stay, what machines you play, how much you spend. By crunching the numbers, Harrah’s knows your specific pain threshold and at what point you’ll have lost enough to quit.

Harrah’s staff in the back room tracks everything and when the computer flags someone coming close to their limit, a member of Harrah’s floor staff approaches the soon-to-give-up gambler and intervenes, offering a free steak dinner, or another $15 credit or even tickets to a show that evening. The result: the gambler keeps gambling.

When I first heard this, I was appalled. How could a casino be so manipulative? (Well, they’re already manipulative, but this seemed over the top.) And how could gamblers be so gullible as to give the casino access to their personal behaviors.

But then I realized that what Harrah’s is doing is really no different than what’s happening online today. Advertisers using behavioral targeting are tracking customers’ every move on the Web – which sites they linger on, how long they stay in one place, what links they click on. The advertiser then knows to serve up the right ad at the right time and place.

Ditto for mobile services. Consumers give up their privacy so that they can receive customized ads and coupons for restaurants in the vicinity of where they’re walking or driving. They see that as valuable – hey, I just got 10% off – but isn’t that basically the same kind of tracking that the casinos are doing?

I’m not saying that publishers should give up on cookies. But if you look at the consumer backlash – see this article on the AIM Group site covering a recent study that found 66 percent of American object to being tracked on the Web – and there’s certainly pause for thought. After all, none of us want to get kicked out of the casino.

Brian Blum heads Blum Interactive Media, a consulting group that works with companies to conduct upfront Internet product planning and strategy in order to develop more successful and profitable interactive media services and applications.