How to make a Kobo private and vendor-independent ?

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by rashkae

More enlightened people might realize that clinging to digital goods you likely only read once is kind of silly, and you should just read your books then forget about it.

Many people buy books well before they get around to reading them, it is not remotely "silly" to "cling to" those purchases by removing the DRM so that they can stored until one is ready to read them.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rashkae

More enlightened people might realize that clinging to digital goods you likely only read once is kind of silly, and you should just read your books then forget about it.

My but someone is feeling elitist today. This person tends to keep his books around and re-read them on occasion. As when a new book in a favourite series is coming out which is why I am now re-reading the Crown of Slaves series.

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by DNSB

My but someone is feeling elitist today.

Perhaps, since people don't know me all that well, I have created a bit of a miscommunication. I wasn't being elitist so much as self deprecating.

[crasspumpkins]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Loosing access to DRM media is the unavoidable end of *all* drm media... Even when the companies don't close, they arbitrarilty eventually stop functioning. (Microsoft and Google included.). I am personally surprised that Adobe ebook drm is still a thing at all... (the cost kobo, or any e-book vendor, is paying for that is astronomical.).

All that being said, the solution for that is simply to remove drm from your books and save a copy. This has *nothing* to do with device registration or how you want to fake it/skip it.

I’d say the solution is both. Remove the DRM, and never register. Never give the company permission to delete your files. Opt out of the surveillance. It will unfortunately mean losing access to some services they offer, but piece of mind is worth it. For me, at least.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

You had never read of anyone losing access to their books purchased from the Microsoft E-book Store, until it happened. The point being: just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future.

Check out the TOS: https://authorize.kobo.com/terms/termsofuse

Viewing ebooks you purchased from Kobo is part of their service. You agree to the terms of this page when you use the service. They can modify the terms at any time, without notice. If you don’t abide by the terms, they can delete your account and all your books with it.

Even worse, they reserve the right to use the device you purchased to display ads based on the data they collected from you about what you read. And if you don’t like it, your only remedy is to delete your account and give back any of the books you “purchased” (which you didn’t actually purchase because you don’t have a right to it unless Kobo thinks you do).

You really are paranoid. I've never read of anyone losing access to their account at any eBook store for removing the DRM. I've been on MR since the days of the Sony Reader PRS-505 and if something like that has happened, it would have been posted here on MR.

Kobo doesn't display ads. So let them collect data based on my purchases. I won't be seeing any ads on any Kobo Reader. You really do have to stop taking things so seriously.

There is no way to be 100% private. You are more at risk from having your data hacked at a big chain department store then you are at Kobo.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

I’d say the solution is both. Remove the DRM, and never register. Never give the company permission to delete your files. Opt out of the surveillance. It will unfortunately mean losing access to some services they offer, but piece of mind is worth it. For me, at least.

Sorry, but your advice is not going to work. You need to create an account in order to buy eBooks. You cannot get away from doing that. So use that account to register as Kobo already has your information.

Amazon, Kobo, Google, eBooks.com, Smashwords, Baen, Apple, and others all need to have a valid account to be able to buy eBooks.

[crasspumpkins]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Sorry, but your advice is not going to work. You need to create an account in order to buy eBooks. You cannot get away from doing that. So use that account to register as Kobo already has your information.

Amazon, Kobo, Google, eBooks.com, Smashwords, Baen, Apple, and others all need to have a valid account to be able to buy eBooks.

Recall the details of the original post:

Originally Posted by Odessa

How to make sure Kobo and Adobe have as little information as possible on what I do ?

The answer here is to not register with Kobo at all. Not even to buy books.

Originally Posted by Odessa

How to make sure I can still read my paid-for books if Kobo disappears or closes my account ?

Refusing to give Kobo access to the system will ensure that Kobo doesn't delete paid-for books. It's easy to transfer books paid for on other platforms. Odessa is familiar with Calibre.


To meet these conditions, the solution I mentioned will work. There is no requirement for an individual to buy books from Kobo, which has a suboptimal privacy policy. Unfortunately, I don't know of an ebook vendor with anything like a reasonable policy. The best option, I'd say, is going to be buying from indie ebook sellers (booshop.org, etc) or directly from the publisher. Smaller outfits won't be as clever with your data.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

Recall the details of the original post:



The answer here is to not register with Kobo at all. Not even to buy books.



Refusing to give Kobo access to the system will ensure that Kobo doesn't delete paid-for books. It's easy to transfer books paid for on other platforms. Odessa is familiar with Calibre.


To meet these conditions, the solution I mentioned will work. There is no requirement for an individual to buy books from Kobo, which has a suboptimal privacy policy. Unfortunately, I don't know of an ebook vendor with anything like a reasonable policy. The best option, I'd say, is going to be buying from indie ebook sellers (booshop.org, etc) or directly from the publisher. Smaller outfits won't be as clever with your data.

You just don't get it. The OP wants to buy eBooks. So you have to give some information in order to do so no matter which the store. Kobo doesn't delete paid for eBooks. I don't know where that information came from, but it's incorrect.

Buying direct from the publisher can get you into trouble. In another post someone bought directly from one of the big publishers and ended up with an eBook that only worked with Glose and that's just a waste of money.

Buying from an indie eBook seller only works if the store has what you want.

I see no reason not to buy from Kobo. I've never lost any eBooks and I've not had an issue with privacy.

[crasspumpkins]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You just don't get it. The OP wants to buy eBooks. So you have to give some information in order to do so no matter which the store.

Absolutely correct. However, Odessa specifically mentioned not wanting to give information to Kobo and Adobe. In order to avoid giving information to Kobo and Adobe, one needs to avoid purchasing from Kobo, and indeed any vendor which uses Adobe DRM. I don't know Odessa's trust model beyond an apparent (and definitely justified) mistrust of Kobo.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Kobo doesn't delete paid for eBooks. I don't know where that information came from, but it's incorrect.

Do you work for Rakuten? Do you have insider knowledge on what the corporation has done under its Kobo brand since it was purchased by them, or before? Would you be willing to swear in a deposition, under penalty of perjury, that under no circumstance has Kobo / Rakuten ever deleted a paid-for ebook? Further, would be willing to bet US$400 that never, from this day forward, that Kobo will never cause the deletion, either through direct action or service neglect, of purchased contents? Whoever loses has to donate to an agreed-upon children's literacy charity. I'll let you pick it.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Buying direct from the publisher can get you into trouble. In another post someone bought directly from one of the big publishers and ended up with an eBook that only worked with Glose and that's just a waste of money.

In such a circumstance, I would expect a user as adept as Odessa to be able to navigate such a situation, or else request a refund,

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Buying from an indie eBook seller only works if the store has what you want.

This is true of any store.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I see no reason not to buy from Kobo. I've never lost any eBooks and I've not had an issue with privacy.

This isn't about you, or what you want, or what has happened to you, or what you care about. This is about Odessa asking a very specific question about how to minimize the data being gathered by Kobo and how to minimize the risk of Kobo, as a service, deleting content that they paid for. Whether that solution conflicts with other services that Odessa finds useful is certainly something for Odessa to weigh, but it doesn't change the answer. Whether you find the chances of Odessa's concerns coming to fact likely or unlikely does not change the answer to the question. The truth is, we don't know what's going to happen when Kobo shuts down. We do know what happened when similar services shut down -- Microsoft revoked access to the books that people purchased and issued them refunds.

We also don't know what data Kobo has access to. We can assume they have the same information that Amazon has with their e-readers -- and it's quite a lot. So, a person who is concerned about this benefits from knowing the whole story.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

Absolutely correct. However, Odessa specifically mentioned not wanting to give information to Kobo and Adobe. In order to avoid giving information to Kobo and Adobe, one needs to avoid purchasing from Kobo, and indeed any vendor which uses Adobe DRM. I don't know Odessa's trust model beyond an apparent (and definitely justified) mistrust of Kobo.

You are aware that Kobo uses two flavours of DRM? If you download the books using the menu on their webpage, you will get either no DRM or Adobe's ADEPT DRM. If you synchronize the books from Kobo to an app or to your Kobo ereader, you will get either Kobo's proprietary DRM for which an entirely adequate DRM removal tools exists in KFX or no DRM. So no need to sweat Adobe's DRM.

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

Do you work for Rakuten? Do you have insider knowledge on what the corporation has done under its Kobo brand since it was purchased by them, or before? Would you be willing to swear in a deposition, under penalty of perjury, that under no circumstance has Kobo / Rakuten ever deleted a paid-for ebook? Further, would be willing to bet US$400 that never, from this day forward, that Kobo will never cause the deletion, either through direct action or service neglect, of purchased contents? Whoever loses has to donate to an agreed-upon children's literacy charity. I'll let you pick it.

At this point, I can safely say that Kobo has never deleted a paid for ebook. They have withdrawn ebooks from sale due to various issues but they have not reached out and deleted content off the user's device in the fashion where Amazon deleted illegal copies of 1984 from user devices.

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

In such a circumstance, I would expect a user as adept as Odessa to be able to navigate such a situation, or else request a refund

The person who purchased the Glose only ebook was informed that no refund was going to be issued. Since there are no tools available to download and unprotect Glose content regardless of how adept a user might be, the purchaser wrote the ebook off as a learning experience.

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

This isn't about you, or what you want, or what has happened to you, or what you care about. This is about Odessa asking a very specific question about how to minimize the data being gathered by Kobo and how to minimize the risk of Kobo, as a service, deleting content that they paid for. Whether that solution conflicts with other services that Odessa finds useful is certainly something for Odessa to weigh, but it doesn't change the answer. Whether you find the chances of Odessa's concerns coming to fact likely or unlikely does not change the answer to the question. The truth is, we don't know what's going to happen when Kobo shuts down. We do know what happened when similar services shut down -- Microsoft revoked access to the books that people purchased and issued them refunds.

Perhaps I've been around a bit longer than you. I remember when Microsoft shut down their servers that handled DRM on .lit format ebooks. No refunds were issued and if you didn't remove the DRM before the shutdown, you had content that could not be used.

Originally Posted by crasspumpkins

We also don't know what data Kobo has access to. We can assume they have the same information that Amazon has with their e-readers -- and it's quite a lot. So, a person who is concerned about this benefits from knowing the whole story.

We do have a pretty decent idea of what information your Kobo ereader shares with Kobo which unlike Amazon does not include information beyond reading time and page flips for sideloaded ebooks. Blame it on Canadian privacy laws.(*) You can also ask Kobo for access to any information that they have collected on your activities and they have a legal obligation to grant that access.

I find it rather humourous that such trivial precautions such as setting up a email account solely for use with your Kobo account and using gift cards to purchase content for that account are too arcane for some of the "I demand my privacy" gripers.

*

The 10 Principles of PIPEDA

Referred to as the fair information principles, these ten criteria represent the foundation of PIPEDA and are detailed in the Schedule 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Beyond them, organizations are responsible for the protection and fair handling of personal information at all times and are obligated to ensure that any collection, use or disclosure of personal information is done only for purposes that a reasonable person would deem appropriate given the circumstances.

The 10 fair information principles are:

1. Accountability: An organization is responsible for personal information under its control. It must appoint a Privacy Officer whose purpose is to ensure compliance with Canada’s data protection law.
2. Identifying Purposes: Organizations must identify the purposes for which personal data is being collected before or at the time of collection.
3. Consent: Individuals’ consent is needed for the collection, use or disclosure of personal information. Some exemptions apply to this principle such as, for example, in cases where legal, medical or security reasons make seeking consent impossible or impractical.
4. Limiting Collection: Information must be collected by fair and lawful means and must be limited to the data needed for the purpose identified by the organization.
5. Limiting Use, Disclosure, and Retention: Personal information can only be used or disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected and must be kept solely for the duration required to serve those purposes unless the individual consents otherwise or it is required by law.
6. Accuracy: Personal information must be as accurate, complete, and as up-to-date as possible in order to properly satisfy the purposes for which it is to be used.
7. Safeguards: Personal information must be protected through appropriate security safeguards against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use, or modification.
8. Openness: Organizations must be open about their policies and practices relating to the management of personal data and ensure that such information is easily available to individuals in a generally understandable format.
9. Individual Access: Upon request, an individual must be informed of the existence, use, and disclosure of their personal information and be given access to it. Individuals have the right to challenge the accuracy and completeness of that information and have it amended as appropriate. Organizations may deny access to personal data if the information cannot be disclosed for legal, security, or commercial proprietary reasons or is subject to solicitor-client or litigation privilege.
10. Challenging Compliance: An individual can challenge an organization’s compliance with PIPEDA’s principles and address their challenge to the company’s Privacy Officer in charge of PIPEDA compliance.

The real kicker for most companies is clause 9. The requirement to allow the individual to access the information collected on them unless there is compelling legal reasons for a judge to deny that access has bitten a few companies since PIPEDA was first born back in 2000.

[vintodrimmer]

Personally, I’d recommend not registering device (unless that stops firmware updates) and using “calibre-web” for that sweet online syncing experience.
All I got from registering is a large advertisement (top sellers) that was very visually unpleasant to me with no possibility to remove it.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by vintodrimmer

Personally, I’d recommend not registering device (unless that stops firmware updates) and using “calibre-web” for that sweet online syncing experience.
All I got from registering is a large advertisement (top sellers) that was very visually unpleasant to me with no possibility to remove it.

On what device? And where? Are talking about what is shown on the home page of a brand new Kobo device for a brand new user? If so, just use the device. Yes, Kobo put things on the home page, but, they respond to use. Once you have a few books on the device, the other things disappear.

Or are you referring to some other not mentioned device?

[vintodrimmer]

Originally Posted by davidfor

On what device? And where? Are talking about what is shown on the home page of a brand new Kobo device for a brand new user? If so, just use the device. Yes, Kobo put things on the home page, but, they respond to use. Once you have a few books on the device, the other things disappear.

Or are you referring to some other not mentioned device?

On a Kobo Elipsa in the lower-left corner for the brand new user.
They did disappear eventually, but initial impression was pretty bad.
I'll look into the Kobo Patcher to see if any of this can be changed.


Following is a rant about me not liking the interface.

Generally, I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed in the interface.
Bottom-left was occupied by the aforementioned TOP-50 picks with the largest image being quite unpleasant to me. I tried pressing "not interested", but it didn't change anything, it was still one of the largest elements on the screen.
Bottom-right was just wasted space, since I'm not really interested in recommendations (they are quite bad in my experience). I did give it a try, but now they just contain some books I'm not going to be interested in.

The worst part is how non-interactive they are.
This is literally a dedicated advertisement space.
You can't browse through the elements from the screen, you can't dismiss or open them from here.
The only thing you can do is use them to open the store (for which there already is a dedicated, always visible button at the bottom of the screen).
To be fair, once I uploaded some books instead of just research PDFs, it did disappear, but the space is still wasted. As the top row I have my recent books.
In the bottom left I have some other books. By pressing on any of the books in the lower-left they don't open, but bring you to the other page entirely with all of your books. So I can just press "my books" button with the same effect.

I just think the UI is terrible, honestly.
I'd prefer it to always default to the "my books" page with the "currently reading" ones at the top and have the ability to disable everything else.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by vintodrimmer

On a Kobo Elipsa in the lower-left corner for the brand new user.
They did disappear eventually, but initial impression was pretty bad.[...]

Bottom-right was just wasted space, since I'm not really interested in recommendations (they are quite bad in my experience). I did give it a try, but now they just contain some books I'm not going to be interested in.

The worst part is how non-interactive they are.
This is literally a dedicated advertisement space.

Did this bottom-right Recommendations on the Elipsa persist and remain non-interactive after you opened/read a book or two? My bottom right - on a H2Oed2 - always contains either a recent series or a recent author. Which I find rather useful.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've never once read of anyone losing access to their Kobo purchased eBooks.

Raises hand. As I mentioned recently in a different thread, in a post which you quoted and to which you responded, at one point Kobo removed access to purchased PDFs, of which I had a few (they were either cheaper than the ePub or the only format available). They gave a warning in advance, but those books are gone.