Amazon outdoing PRISM

[fjtorres]

Timely report from Science News on attitudes towards online privacy:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...online_privacy

Adults don't want kids to post private stuff online because it can be misused; kids get upset *only* when it is misused. It is the misuse, not the access, that digital natives find offensive.

For those of us over 30, Internet privacy means identity theft and government eavesdropping. Parents fret that their children’s online behavior will make them targets of predators or corporations, or will ruin future academic or employment opportunities.

But people who have grown up online seem to have developed sophisticated standards of privacy in the very public sphere of social media that their parents really don’t appreciate. The attitude of today’s teens might best be expressed as “just because you can, that doesn’t mean you should.”

[usuallee]

Originally Posted by MattW

I'd like to continue this discussion, but HarryT has told me in no uncertain terms that I'd have to open a new thread in the "Politics" subforum. So, sorry, it seems that while tax evasion and copyright law are fine, privacy is not a topic we're allowed to discuss in Mobileread's "News" section. I would've thought that this is a place where a thread can run its course as long as it's civil, but obviously, I was wrong.

Matt

I have to agree. I think it's a little overzealous to censor a thread that is topical and certainly qualifies as "news" , and that has led to a spirited yet civil debate.

[Istvan diVega]

I'm pretty sure this is a silly question, but where is this 'Politics & Religion' section?

[soulfuldog]

I think you have to opt in via your User CP to get access to them - see the following thread: Politics and religion are off-limits, unless you opt in

[Istvan diVega]

Thank you kindly, I'd totally missed that thread.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

Are you as upset about radar guns in police hands? Traffic Cameras? Big city community surveillance systems? How about all the measures to keep track of you and the things you purchase in stores? Life today includes many such "invasions" of our privacy, it is how the collected information is used that can become a problem.

If I'm not mistaken, the examples that you give only store the information for a very limited amount of time. Can the same be said about Amazon?

[Ken Maltby]

The long term storage does present the hazard that someone might gain access to it and misuse it they (those doing the storing) would have some liability depending on what efforts they may have taken to prevent the unauthorized access. Of course Amazon or any other data collector could be sued for any resulting perceived loss that can be proved in court. Not heard of any such cases yet, much less anything where it is proved in court that any use of the data collected resulted in a loss.

Luck;
Ken

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

The long term storage does present the hazard that someone might gain access to it and misuse it they (those doing the storing) would have some liability depending on what efforts they may have taken to prevent the unauthorized access. Of course Amazon or any other data collector could be sued for any resulting perceived loss that can be proved in court. Not heard of any such cases yet, much less anything where it is proved in court that any use of the data collected resulted in a loss.

Luck;
Ken

Then doesn't this explain why people are not as upset by radar guns as they are by Amazon or the government collecting data?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Never know where a link may take you.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

===

Couldn't resist

But yes... I find stuff such as this quite troubling. Therefore I do use Ghostery, Adblock, and NoScript; maybe I'll even add FlashBlock and BetterPrivacy too.

If I'm on a computer that has a plain Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox, I'm always shocked to see how the internet REALLY looks. I go completely berserk trying to find what I need... "my versions"of the websites are so very clean and white and spacious in comparison.

I actually demand that I be able to root my Android tablet and phone to be able to install an adblocker using Android's hosts file (among other things)...

[BeccaPrice]

I downloaded an adblocker for my android phone, and installed it, but it didn't do anything that I could tell. Fortunately, I don't use my phone for surfing or anything really other than a phone or navigation.

[Katsunami]

If your phone is rooted, then use AdFree. It *definitely* works.

[rkw]

Read Jennifer Government, really, read it. It is about the Corporate State road down which we are heading as a PLANET. Not saying it's good or bad I am just sayin'.

Hopefully I'll be dead before this gets to the seemingly inevitible conclusion in a few decades.

BTW, if we are all told "if you are doing nothing wrong...." then corporations must be forced to comply even to a high degree. If they are doing nothing wrong then open their records and business plans to all. Seriously, they have already done this to us, time we turned that particular finger around. Open them files peepholes.

:P

[Alexander Turcic]

Originally Posted by MattW

So, sorry, it seems that while tax evasion and copyright law are fine, privacy is not a topic we're allowed to discuss in Mobileread's "News" section.

Originally Posted by usuallee

I have to agree. I think it's a little overzealous to censor a thread that is topical and certainly qualifies as "news" , and that has led to a spirited yet civil debate.

Moderator Notice
To clarify: privacy-related issues have always a popular topic in our discussions, and have never been censored nor disallowed. What we don't want to get into though are purely political rants.

Cheers,
Alex

[Freeshadow]

@ fjtorres
The NYtimes link was a very interesting read as according to habits and subconscious patterns.

The anecdote about Febreze and how they had to make the product worse to rise sales does remind me of a story from the beginning of steam machines: a customer requested it being made somhow louder by loosening some screws where possible.
Unlike his previous (mule-driven one) he wasn't able to hear it working in the yard from inside his office which made him frequently stand up and go to the window checking if it still run.

[BoldlyDubious]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

To clarify: privacy-related issues have always a popular topic in our discussions, and have never been censored nor disallowed. What we don't want to get into though are purely political rants.

I think that this is an interesting thread. I also think that MattW's posts were civil and reasonable in their content and tone, and that even the one that MattW defined as a "rant" could not, by any reasonable definition of "political rant", be classified as one.
So, I found the "moderating" intervention by HarryT to be inappropriate.

Inappropriate, but oddly pertinent to this thread, that is. I think it's creepy that we (the world) have come to a point where public discussions about privacy issues get stopped for no clear reasons.

By the way: I think that the point of privacy protection is limiting excessive *collection* of data about people, not *misuse* of collected data. Data that have not been collected cannot be misused; data that have been collected may be.