Readers' privacy is under threat in the digital age

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by hidari

I hear the Harry Pottter Series is a right wing anarchist plutocratic plot to overthrow all Starbucks in the industrialized world, hence governments scramble to "learn" what people are reading in order to stop this immanent threat of Coffeegedan...

I knew it. I knew it...

Something else I heard. Mars is really behind it all controlling governments to protect their Martian Pod Conversion sites which are installed at many Starbucks.

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

As for your examples; With the landlord and phone company we have a contract that establishes what our rights and duties are. If the contract would stipulate that the landlord can enter the premises at a whim or the phone company can listen in on my conversations I would opt out of those contracts because I feel they would violate my privacy.

I'm not sure what the situation is like in your part of the world, but the law in these parts clearly stipulates that the landlord cannot enter the premises without prior written notice. It also states that no contract can override that right. (Yes, I have read the law.) If that right could be overridden in a contract, you would quickly discover that you would be left with the option of accepting those terms or being homeless. The simple fact of the matter is that most people don't read contracts, don't understand the contracts when they do read them, don't care about the terms of the contract, or have no option but accept the terms of the contract.

I know that FB tracks my every move on their site, and I am not comfortable with that, hence I opt out.

Ditto. Quite frankly, I'm not terribly concerned if a limited group of companies have a total disregard for privacy. In those cases they are easy enough to avoid. The real concern is when very few companies respect your privacy. In those cases, people who want the privacy respected have very few (or even no) options except to become marginalized.

When it comes to eBooks, you could if you want to, close down WiFi after a purchase, read the book, delete it, delete the log files, so the next time you turn on WiFi there is no data to sync. Now, I don't do that, simply because it isn't something that bothers me. If I purchase and read several books from a certain author I can see it reflected in Amazon's recommendations, and I actually appreciate that (sometimes they miss though). However, if I lived in North Korea I would not want to have an eReader that synced with the Ministry of Information's servers. So, naturally I would opt out.

It ain't always that easy. Many people don't have the technical know-how to follow the steps that you described. Very few would be able to do something as technical as delete the log files (in many readers, it would involve some form of rooting and a thorough analysis of the system to even figure out where things are logged). Turning off the Wi-Fi is also problematic in some respects. On dedicated devices, it ain't much of an issue to turn it off and leave it turned off. On devices such as phones and tablets, you will end up losing important functionality. If you are using a service that requires DRM (which is a must if you read mainstream books), there is a high probability that the computer's software will kick in and synchronize the data before you can even remove the logfiles. Well, unless you do stuff that will truly get you labelled as paranoid.

In my view, you are the one who makes a choice. Hence, you also need to make that an educated choice. I trust my ability to find the required information and make that judgement, more than I trust the provider. Always have, always will.

I admire the nobility of your attitude, but some of us live in the real world. For us, there is no such thing as an educated and independent choice. Society places many constraints upon us. If the majority in society are willing to give away their privacy, then we usually must do so ourselves in order to be a player in that society. If we chose to protect our privacy, we quickly find ourselves on the margins of society. Sometimes that ain't a great place to be.

[Kumabjorn]

And sometimes it is the only place to be.
In my view, the only person in this world who is truly concerned about my privacy is me, if I entrust the management of my privacy to someone else then I have per definition already surrendered.

I'm not disagreeing with you, your view is actually correct. What I'm saying is that any and all laws aimed at protecting our privacy on the internet will be hollow by nature unless you give organisations like NSA or GHQC the right to monitor corporate servers on behalf of the citizens, that scenario is even scarier as far as I'm concerned.

[OtterBooks]

Concern over privacy issues let's me believe that during an age of mass isolation, someone, somewhere finds me interesting.

[hidari]

Don't worry Otterbooks..there...there now....We won't build a damn up Cyberriver... so you will still be able to catch those "legal" ebooks on your Ottercyberrecks...just bewere the Cybebeavers...the tend to catch everything and are very slippery....when whet.

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Concern over privacy issues let's me believe that during an age of mass isolation, someone, somewhere finds me interesting.