Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
So why is Kobo allowed to serve eBooks for Overdrive in Canada? Isn't it the same privacy issue as it would be if Kindle eBooks were available?
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Syncing to a Kobo ereader, the data goes through Kobo's hands and as far as I am aware, that is going to require a Canadian court to issue the court order for access to information on a Canadian customer. Them durn foreign countries that do not respect the rights of the US courts to demand any information at any time. You do have the choice not to sync directly to your Kobo ereader so user beware.
As for the library if you do a download using ADE, the borrower name is not part of the information given to Overdrive. The library end of the transaction is on a ACM server that, in theory, is private to the library. Asking a Canadian library or ISP to cough up user information is going to require a Canadian court to issue the order. I suppose a court order issued in the States could demand access to the server from the data centre operators if the server was physically located in a data centre in the USA. OTOH, the data centre is unlikely to have the decryption keys so accessing the server is going to require the NSA or equivalent to break the encryption.
Yes, Canadian libraries and ISPs have to bend and spread if required by the Canadian courts. However Canadian courts in past cases have only allowed very specific searches in contrast to American courts which seem fonder of the "hand over all the data and we will decide what is needed" approach. We won't get into the "secret" court orders which seem to be growing in popularity in the USA. I will admit that CSIS has not been a poster child for respecting privacy but then they are in the news for that.
As for my personal feelings about Amazon? Unlike Microsoft in the case of the data stored on a server in Ireland, Amazon in the past has shown a willingness to comply with requests for user information with no public court appearances required despite the data not being located on servers inside the USA.