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Old 08-13-2008, 06:20 AM   #16
readingaloud
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readingaloud is on a distinguished road
 
Posts: 34
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Switzerland
Device: iRex iLiad; Sony Reader; Amazon Kindle
Whatever happened to the idea of presuming good faith?

I don't want to get into a flame war, but as the person who is accused, by implication at least, of being a drunk paranoid liar who believes in space aliens, I think I might show the source of my "misinformation". It is the "Amazon Kindle: License Agreement and Terms of Use" document, available on the Amazon web site. Here's the most relevant passage:

Information Received. The Device Software will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device). Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice.

Now, if this doesn't worry you, I won't bother to tell you that it should. And if the device isn't actually doing what the document says it's doing, that's good. But I still find the idea that the device might do that, and that Amazon reserves the right to do it, breathtakingly intrusive.

Lots of people seem to be blissfully unaware of the issue, and that's disturbing in itself. Someday, perhaps, the people who don't care about privacy will either be glad that there were some of us who do, or, more likely, wish that they had.
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