Your EBook is Reading You

[keriflur]

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vertical wrote:

Yes, ABSOLUTELY I want an opt-out feature. This is a serious violation of privacy. BTW, what about the laws against tracking and collecting data on kids? They use Nooks too. BN claims it doesn't collect data on kids younger than 13. But HOW DO THEY KNOW who is using the Nook?

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They know that you cannot have an account if you are under the age of 13 (it's B&N's rule, after all), and they cannot track you if you do not have an account.  So, any tracking would be applied to the account holder.  If you let your child read a book on your nook, the system would assume it was you that was reading it, if you are the account holder.  So they are not collecting data on your kid, they're collecting slightly erroneous data on you.

It's just like if you let your child use google and you're logged in, it will collect data on your child as if it were you doing searches

[vertical]

Ahmm, not exactly an accurate analogy, because BN has ebook content TARGETED at children, i.e., children's books. So they should reasonably assume children are reading them.

A proper analogy would be if Google had KID pages, with content geared toward 5-6 year olds (regardless of who the actual account holder is), and then tracked and recorded all activity on those pages. That would be inappropriate and I don't think Google would do that. Same for Facebook, if they had a section targeted toward young children. Everyone would understandably be up in arms if they tracked everything the kids did.

It should be no different with BN tracking kids' reading habits. I would not think it would be too big a technical challenge to prevent reader analysis data from being recorded with children's books and, eventually, to allow for an opt-out choice for adults.

[bobstro]

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MacMcK1957 wrote:

If you ranked all the devices that use a micro-SD card, how far down the list would you have to go before you get to helmet cam?

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Well, helmet cam + erotica certainly makes sense.

[keriflur]

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vertical wrote:

Ahmm, not exactly an accurate analogy, because BN has ebook content TARGETED at children, i.e., children's books. So they should reasonably assume children are reading them.

A proper analogy would be if Google had KID pages, with content geared toward 5-6 year olds (regardless of who the actual account holder is), and then tracked and recorded all activity on those pages. That would be inappropriate and I don't think Google would do that. Same for Facebook, if they had a section targeted toward young children. Everyone would understandably be up in arms if they tracked everything the kids did.

It should be no different with BN tracking kids' reading habits. I would not think it would be too big a technical challenge to prevent reader analysis data from being recorded with children's books and, eventually, to allow for an opt-out choice for adults.

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Google tracks all your searches. Every. Single. One.  And as there are children's websites on the internet, it is tracking when you search for them.  It does not say, "Oh, this is a children's site, so I won't track it."

Facebook also does not allow anyone under the age of 13 to have an account.  I would assume they apply the same tracking rules as, well, everyone else - track everything.

I think that while it's likely that some parents are giving nooks to their kids and are not reading with their children, I think it's much more likely, especially with small children (picture book and early reader age), that parents are reading WITH their children.  This then means that an adult is reading too.  So the lines get fuzzy.

I'm not a lawyer, no do I play one on the internet, but I'm going to assume that B&N is not violating their own ToS here.

[kamas716]

It's not just B&N's ToS, there's federal law involved regarding collection of data of children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

It seems to deal more with personal identifying information than simply tracking reading habits, but I suppose it could apply, laws are tricky things.

[keriflur]

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kamas716 wrote:

It's not just B&N's ToS, there's federal law involved regarding collection of data of children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

It seems to deal more with personal identifying information than simply tracking reading habits, but I suppose it could apply, laws are tricky things.

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Yes, this is why they don't allow anyone under 13 to have an account.  Same with Facebook, and everyone else.

[gb18]

"I wasn't aware that my Nook transfers user data back to Barnes and Noble, yet I can't think of a way that it harms me."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-pinneo/hooray-my-ereader-is-spying_b_1638736.html

[MacMcK1957]

Since I do my book browsing online rather than from my Nook, I pretty much already knew they were tracking me, just as Amazon and every other online vendor does. It's pretty obvious that they're making suggestions to me based on things I've browsed,

[patgolfneb]

The real issue is what they do with it and do they release or sell individual information that allows third parties to identify individuals. Every time that happens all heck breaks loose.

[flyingtoastr Scribe]

BN has a pretty strict "no sale of customer information" policy. We used have huge pamphlets to give people with a ton of legalese stuff on it regarding the privacy policy if they asked.