Quote:
Originally Posted by Kumabjorn
As for your examples; With the landlord and phone company we have a contract that establishes what our rights and duties are. If the contract would stipulate that the landlord can enter the premises at a whim or the phone company can listen in on my conversations I would opt out of those contracts because I feel they would violate my privacy.
|
I'm not sure what the situation is like in your part of the world, but the law in these parts clearly stipulates that the landlord cannot enter the premises without prior written notice. It also states that no contract can override that right. (Yes, I have read the law.) If that right could be overridden in a contract, you would quickly discover that you would be left with the option of accepting those terms or being homeless. The simple fact of the matter is that most people don't read contracts, don't understand the contracts when they do read them, don't care about the terms of the contract, or have no option but accept the terms of the contract.
Quote:
|
I know that FB tracks my every move on their site, and I am not comfortable with that, hence I opt out.
|
Ditto. Quite frankly, I'm not terribly concerned if a limited group of companies have a total disregard for privacy. In those cases they are easy enough to avoid. The real concern is when very few companies respect your privacy. In those cases, people who want the privacy respected have very few (or even no) options except to become marginalized.
Quote:
|
When it comes to eBooks, you could if you want to, close down WiFi after a purchase, read the book, delete it, delete the log files, so the next time you turn on WiFi there is no data to sync. Now, I don't do that, simply because it isn't something that bothers me. If I purchase and read several books from a certain author I can see it reflected in Amazon's recommendations, and I actually appreciate that (sometimes they miss though). However, if I lived in North Korea I would not want to have an eReader that synced with the Ministry of Information's servers. So, naturally I would opt out.
|
It ain't always that easy. Many people don't have the technical know-how to follow the steps that you described. Very few would be able to do something as technical as delete the log files (in many readers, it would involve some form of rooting and a thorough analysis of the system to even figure out where things are logged). Turning off the Wi-Fi is also problematic in some respects. On dedicated devices, it ain't much of an issue to turn it off and leave it turned off. On devices such as phones and tablets, you will end up losing important functionality. If you are using a service that requires DRM (which is a must if you read mainstream books), there is a high probability that the computer's software will kick in and synchronize the data before you can even remove the logfiles. Well, unless you do stuff that will truly get you labelled as paranoid.
Quote:
|
In my view, you are the one who makes a choice. Hence, you also need to make that an educated choice. I trust my ability to find the required information and make that judgement, more than I trust the provider. Always have, always will.
|
I admire the nobility of your attitude, but some of us live in the real world. For us, there is no such thing as an educated and independent choice. Society places many constraints upon us. If the majority in society are willing to give away their privacy, then we usually must do so ourselves in order to be a player in that society. If we chose to protect our privacy, we quickly find ourselves on the margins of society. Sometimes that ain't a great place to be.