Quote:
Originally Posted by jgaiser
Stay off the internet. Don't use credit cards. Don't sign up for magazine subscriptions. Don't use loyalty cards. Lock your doors and never leave. Yeehaa.
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Just because you accept or agree to one reduction in privacy, does not mean you agree to all of them. Likewise, complaining about one loss of privacy does not mean you disagree with all reductions. Privacy is always a question of balance.
The data credit card companies log when you use them is information necessary for providing the service e.g The store knows what you bought and must do so for stock keeping and to deal with returns, the cc company knows how much you spent in total and where but not exactly what you bought which is again data they need to provide the service.
Loyalty cards are a better example of the privacy balance. You don't have to use them, but if you do, you accept a reduction in privacy though the logging of everything you've purchased in return for a reduction in the price of items you buy. Or google mail, where using the free service means you accept a reduction of privacy by google scanning your mails for advertising purposes, but pay for the business version of apps and you can disable it. You get something in return for the reduction of privacy.
This logging of ebook usage however is one sided and I'll not buy any books that use it (even though I could just edit out the script, not to mention it won't work on the kindle which is my current reader).
It's not information essential to the provision of the service and as such I'd only accept it if they offer a reduction in the price of the book, or let you accumulate reward points in return for letting them log this data AND it's optional and can be opted out upon opening the book (or ideally set as a global off preference in the readers).
There's been a lot of fuss in the EU with regards to tracking cookies and analytics, the ebook analytics would imo fall under the same (or should if it doesn't) rules. Although they sadly watered it down at the last minute to allow implied consent which if they show a privacy warning when you first open the book and a way to opt-out, then that's likely enough to get through via implied consent
Edit: and yes I'm aware of amazon having this ability, since I have bookmark syncing enabled they could data mine that for all sorts of purposes. I'm hoping they don't but as previously mentioned, it's a trade off, they provide a convenient service at the risk of a bit of a loss of privacy. I hope though that they're only using that data for the purposes they've actually stated even though we've no real way to know for sure.