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E-book buyer's privacy guide - reading isn't solo anymore
The digital footprints we leave as we move along in our daily lives are pretty astonishing. As our lives are transformed by the convenience technology provides, the price we pay is the privacy we give up. Today is Data Privacy Day, and we thought it was a good time to highlight one of the areas where companies are watching your behavior closely.The Electronic Frontier Foundation published an excellent guide, "The E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy " which dishes the goods on E book readers' privacy policies by brand. It might give you pause to think of the powerful information Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Google, and Sony could employ with the information they monitor on what books individuals read or search for.
For instance, two of the E-book readers (Google Books and Amazon Kindle) can monitor what you're reading. Google's Book Search Project takes tracking reading habits to a new level, logging what you searched for, the page you read, how long you viewed the page, and where you searched next.
All of the E-book readers, Google Books, Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, and Sony Reader can keep track of book searches and book purchases. Most troubling is the fact that the information collected on your book selections, searches, and purchases could be shared outside the company without your consent (applies to the Kindle, Nook and Reader).
The good news is you do have options. You can laugh in the face of the commercial behemoths and get a free, open source FBReader (for Windows/Linux) which collects no data on your book selections or searches. Another option: you can go to a bookstore and purchase an old fashioned paper book, with cash preferably.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentssodapopJan 28th 2010 2:17PM
This is certainly scary. They problem with the free readers and the open source readers is that they aren't paired up with an open source source of (new/popular) books. Nor the conveniences that a service such as Kindle provides.
Plus, publishers are not going to let go of DRM. Heck, they are lobbying for returns on used book sales AND lending a book to a friend AND library lending!
jollyrogueJan 28th 2010 2:33PM
Personally, i don't see it as being different to Gameplay stats collected by Steam, PS3 and Xbox...
KlinJan 28th 2010 6:04PM
Well unless you're playing Anarchism & Terrorism 2009 on Steam, I doubt your gaming stats are very politicized. Stuff like this can be, and has been, used to identify and punish or subvert political opponents.
RichJan 28th 2010 3:12PM
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/9/
'Nuff said
MarkBJan 28th 2010 4:05PM
The fact that my book reading habits are being stored isn't all that big of a deal for me. Even if that information were to be hacked, I mean, really, so what?
Warner YoungJan 28th 2010 7:08PM
A couple of other points:
1) Buying your books in paper form at a regular bookstore can (probably) still be tracked if you use a credit card. And of course, even if you don't buy, but borrow from a library, your reading habits can be tracked.
2) For eBooks, you can always buy your books at a place like eReader.com. Their ebooks can be read using their own reader software or the Nook. Yes, your purchases can still be tracked, but if you use their software, then your *reading* isn't tracked, as far as I know.
There are probably other options, but I've been buying my eBooks from eReader, so that's the one that I'm most familiar with.
Jocelyn ShawFeb 2nd 2010 10:56AM
Actually, libraries don't keep track of the books you read once you've returned them. We (librarians) are very careful of our readers' privacy. We think it is very important the people should be able to read whatever they want to without worrying about what others may think.
PonTelonJan 29th 2010 12:59AM
Glad I went with the Astak's EZReaderPro. $200 and none of this silliness. I don't care if it can't get online. I don't need it to. It's there to read books.
michas_piJan 29th 2010 3:15AM
I will stick to regular books, thank you very much.