Thread: What's with the Paranoia?
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Old 11-25-2020, 04:54 AM   #33
JSWolf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eeeink View Post
When you register with Amazon or Kobo, you give them explicit permission to create a profile of you and use that to send you ads, or to send that information to other companies so that they can send you ads or make predictions about your behavior. This can then be used by anyone who has the money to purchase that information. Insurance companies, credit companies, lending houses. You say "just leave WiFi off" but that's not the point -- any time you then turn WiFi on again to get updates, etc, all that data gets uploaded to their system.

And you make that trade-off -- of giving your behavioral data -- when you purchase ebooks from those companies as well.

My reading habits, including which books I read and how often, are my business. They are not anyone else's business unless I choose to share that information with them. Until these companies came along nobody felt the need to justify their privacy, and I don't feel the need to justify it now. I don't live stream my bathroom usage for the world to see, nor do I disclose what color underwear I'm wearing. Privacy is a fundamental human right, and these companies are trying to take it away for their profit. Well, fuck that.
How is this any different then buying eBooks from Kobo or Amazon. You buy an eBook and they have that information. So how can you buy eBooks without the company you are buying from knowing you bought it? It's no different. Then if you go to Overdrive and download an eBook, again, more data is collected. Sure your Reader isn't properly activated, but these companies are still going to get your data. So what's the point of not properly registering?

What privacy are you going to have not properly registered vs buying eBooks from the same place be it Amazon or Kobo? So really, not properly registering is just a false sense of security as it really doesn't mean anything.

Also, with Kobo, there is a chance that with every firmware update that one of them will not work with the fake registration and you will lose everything in the database. Is that worth the risk for a false sense of security?
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