Arc Bought a Canadian Arc on ebay. Indie bookstore question.

[oj829]

Situation: bought a 32Gb Kobo Arc on ebay from a Canadian seller. (The USD and CAD are very close to 1:1 right now) because my local indie bookstore will not be biting on becoming an Arc outlet. I'm a Glo and Touch owner.

2 questions:

1) Is there a way to tell if an Arc's pedigree is that it was sourced for a big-box store or an indie bookstore? While I don't plan to use the Arc to make any book purchases - I have a Glo bought from and linked to my local indie for that - if it ever comes to that because (heaven forbid) my Glo breaks, I don't want to switch allegiances. (The seller seems to specialize in tech and software stuff, not so much bookstore stuff. I don't want to ask too many questions and scare him off.)

2) Privacy. I just read a lengthy detailed review of the Arc and I see that Kobo has carried over their monstrous "Discover" engine technology and basically applied it to anything you do on the tablet - not just the books you've been reading like on their e-ink hardware, but now the videos and music you play, the websites you visit, the apps you install, etc. Reading how it works in practice, I have finally and officially donned my tinfoil hat.

Can it be stopped? Should I invest in a network traffic monitor/firewall?

[stevov]

as per my reply on the other thread. disable discovery in the apps setting.
Settings-Apps- Discovery sevice-click on it then click on disable

[JD Gumby]

And the "KoboTracking" app, as well. Oh, and the app that is just a string of Asian characters - it's apparently the keyboard for inputting Asian characters, but it requires access to the 'Net connection and your personal information. I wouldn't trust it, personally.

All three items, BTW, are under the Apps -> All tab rather than the default Apps -> Downloaded (which makes them hard to spot, for most people).

[oj829]

Originally Posted by stevov

as per my reply on the other thread. [...]

Thanks. Just found that. I didn't mean to ask the same question twice, but reading comments made me think that in addition to bookstore allegiance and privacy concerns, I'd have to worry also about which launcher to run.

[stevov]

Originally Posted by oj829

Thanks. Just found that. I didn't mean to ask the same question twice, but reading comments made me think that in addition to bookstore allegiance and privacy concerns, I'd have to worry also about which launcher to run.

No worries mate asking twice just means a better chance of getting an answer. Hope it helped.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by oj829

1) Is there a way to tell if an Arc's pedigree is that it was sourced for a big-box store or an indie bookstore?

Answering myself (halfway): Simplest method (obviously) is to use the device to buy a book and see if it shows up credited to the indie store linked to both your web account and Glo purchases.

I did buy a book using my ebay-sourced Arc, and ... somewhere in Canada, there's a bookstore now enjoying the 6-10 cents of my $1.99 purchase.

So, new question, since I clearly have a device intended for sale at a bookstore: Any way to reassign a device to credit a different affiliate for on-device purchases?