Quote:
Originally Posted by The Hooded Claw
What videotapes you rent is protected by federal law, as part of the fallout from a Supreme Court nomination back in the '80s:
http://epic.org/privacy/vppa/
(I'm not a lawyer and have no independent knowledge of the authority of the above site, but it is consistent with what I've read about this issue in the media).
Unfortunately, the law is written pretty specifically for videotapes, but I suspect before long there will be some case where this will be important, and it is definitely possible that afterwards Congress will end up passing a similar law protecting e-books and perhaps material "subscribed" over the internet such as Kindle periodical subscriptions. Till then, if you read kinky sex books or similar stuff you'd rather not have brought out in a court order or a government surveillance operation, best to continue reading them on dead trees!
As for Amazon itself, I suspect if they decided that it would be helpful in their marketing, they'd cheerfully snoop at what Kindle readers were reading. I suspect they'd disassociate the titles from any personal ID immediately, and I also suspect that this wouldn't in the slightest satisfy anyone who was upset by it (which I would be!). On the plus side, I'll bet that they've been so sensitized to this issue by the 1984 fiasco that they won't be trying it for a few years.
I'd read several times that Apple does similar snooping about what MP3 and video you own if you use iTunes software to synch media files onto an iPhone or iPod, but have no specific knowledge if it is actually true. |
I wish I could be as optimistic regarding Congress eventually passing a bill in favour of our right to privacy in this matter. Unfortunately, with the way things are going, the corporations keep winning with all their lobbying power and our rights to privacy have been eroding away for a long time now.