Know who’s tracking your e-reading habits

[Guest LilBambi]

Know who’s tracking your e-reading habits

 

 

The holiday shopping season is upon us, and once again e-book readers promise to be a very popular gift. Last year’s holiday season saw ownership of a dedicated e-reader device spike to nearly 1 in 5 Americans, and that number is poised to go even higher.

 

But if you’re in the market for an e-reader this year, or for e-books to read on one that you already own, you might want to know who’s keeping an eye on your searching, shopping, and reading habits.

[Guest LilBambi]

More here at BBR including noting the Project Gutenberg which definitely should have been included.

 

There's also Project Gutenberg, Baen, and several other sites that sell books - drm free. There is also Creative Commons.

 

I tried a Nook, and wound up telling B&N where to go. They permitted third party spam on the privacy page.

 

B&N also has a policy that you only own the ebook as long as your credit card is good.

 

Barnes & Noble Decides That Purchased Ebooks Are Only Yours Until Your Credit Card Expires

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Not to mention your very own little public library, where all your reading and borrowing habits are on record and available for many government entities to easily access.

 

Thanks to the ridiculously misleadingly named Patriot Act, EVERYONE IS GUILTY OF TERRORISM until proven otherwise. You sheeple wanted security, right? What's a little liberty lost when you know BIG BRO is watching over you? Gives you a nice warm feeling, don't it? Or maybe that's just the radiation emitted by the IR and neutron scanning images made of your home by those drones flying over in the middle of the night.

 

[Cluttermagnet]

Just say no to e-books?

 

I'm an avid reader. I have never read a single e-book.

 

I figure everything digital is intrinsically evil.

Trouble is, I'm already heavily addicted to internet.

Yikes!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

If it ain't made out of dead trees, it ain't a book. So there.

[rolanaj]

Well I own a kindle and Amazon saves every book I buy there on their cloud, which makes it easier for me to read them from anywhere. With libraries and credit card purchases I think big brother has been watching us for a very long time. I have bookshelves in every room in my house that are full of books plus a whole collection that my grandmother left me that I have no idea where to put (books in every room of her house too) and I am allergic to dust so its a dilemma to say the least. There are a lot of places to get DRM free books as has been mentioned and you can store them on your pc or external drive. I like the idea of taking several thousand books with me in my purse to be honest. One thing about an ereader though is I find I tend to have several books going all at once and skip back and forth depending on the mood I'm in.

[ross549]

Yeah, I am reading two things on my Kindle right now.. a magazine, and the book my wife wrote last year.

 

Adam

[Guest LilBambi]

Yep, I use the Kindle App, Nook App, iBooks, and they all do that. Convenience between devices is really nice. I just don't like that they are able to snoop.

 

I also use several apps that are not DRM encumbered ebooks and we are not tracked there. I don't have any issues with navigating to where I was last in those apps.

 

The thing is there are books that I can't get that way sadly. So I use both kinds of apps; free ones that use various epub style unencumbered formats, and the DRM and/or non-DRM'd tracked and snooped upon ones from Amazon, B&N and Apple iTunes and App Stores.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Ray Bradbury would be disappointed in you, Bambi. He was 100% anti-ebook. He wouldn't even allow his copyrighted works to be converted to that format. He was OK with audio books, though.

[Webb]

I recently made my 2x6 hour drive for Thanksgiving. The radio reception gets pretty bad in North Florida so I thought I'd copy some audio books to CD/mp3.

 

I found tons at Archive.org. Of course they have ebooks and text files as well.

 

It worked great in theory but I almost fell asleep about 4 hours into listening to Stanley Tucci read Breakfast of Champions. I listened to a few short stories on the way back

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Umm... I don't know. I guess I'm just old fashioned. I don't want to listen to books either. I just want to turn pages made out of dead tree wood pulp printed with ink and actually READ.

 

Speaking of reading... I'm just finishing up James Hilton's classic Lost Horizon. I'm off to go read now...

[Webb]

I prefer reading to listening too but these were exigent circumstances. When driving long distances I prefer to listen to talk shows but you can easily drive for hours through North Florida without picking up anything but the occasional fundamentalist preacher.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Rock104 in Gainsville. Although, that may not be your speed, Webb. That station was always a mainstay for me when I was traveling to my cabin in Western NC. I could pick it up starting about 30 minutes north of Tampa and listen to it all the way to Macon, GA. After that, I'd listen to the Atlanta stations. Once outside of Atlanta and into the mountains twern't nuthin' but gospel and hellfire/brimstone AM stations. Yup!

[Guest LilBambi]

For driving, I find that engaging fiction, science fiction and criminal drama audio books are best for me. I make use of audiobooks from all kinds of free sources as well as paid sources for my hours and hours of driving for appointments.

 

Just a few places I get audio books are: Podiobooks.com (accepts donations for book or site), archive.org (audiobooks and poetry, free and public domain, accepts donations), librivox.org (free public domain, can become a volunteer), Project Gutenberg (free public domain, search audio, I prefer the human read ones, donations accepted), LearnOutLoud.com (Free Audiobook Friday is great as it introduces you to their audio books and introduction to the audiobooks of other companies too. They have some great deals on some wonderful audio books. speeches, all kinds of audio spanning many subject areas. They have a free section as well.).

 

If you are into YA audiobooks, YA Sync/Audiobook Sync is great (2 audiobooks for free each week in the summer over the last 2 years, hopefully they will continue that next Summer) and ideas and links to some very good audiobooks for pay throughout the year). Of their Sync partners, I have bought ones on sale from most all of the ones they list. I prefer the mp3 audio books. I really hate DRM'd audiobooks although on sale I have gotten some over the years.

[rolanaj]

I like the feel of a real book and they are my preferred format but I also tend to save books I like which makes for a lot of books, it's a whole lot easier to store digital books. I don't drive but I thought that listening to an audio book might be handy when exercising but then I have a four year old hanging around and so far that hasn't worked out so well.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Speaking of books, here's a little self-promotion: https://noctslackv2.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/the-almost-lost-art-of-making-brown-paper-grocery-bag-book-covers/

[rolanaj]

Nice article Eric. I remember making book covers out of brown paper bags. It's really hard to find a bown paper bag here anymore, but I do have some super heavy Christmas paper I could put on backwards that would be cool. If society crumbles and the zombie hordes walk the earth, I’ll use my Kindle as a frisbee

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I posted a comment on that article in reply to someone saying that I remember all the cool Christmas wrapping paper covers that kids came to school with right after the new year.

 

Kindle as a Frisbee? Hmm... not too aerodynamic. Maybe a hot pot trivet... at least once.

[zlim]

Old maps also make good book covers but paper maps are also getting scarce.

[rolanaj]

Old maps look nice as book covers, but you're right even they are getting scarce.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

WoW! I remember old maps as book covers, too. Darn! I hadn't thought about that in forever.

[amenditman]

You’ll never have to make a brown paper grocery bag cover for your Kindle, will you? Of course, when society crumbles and the zombie hordes walk the earth, I’ll still be reading my books at night by candlelight. Your Kindle won’t even make a good doorstop.

I love that!

[V.T. Eric Layton]

[Guest LilBambi]

Last chapter for e-readers? - Computerworld

 

36% decline in e-reader market in 2012 means they'll never recover, analyst says

 

This is just the devices themselves. Not ebooks in general. Most folks are moving to multi-purpose devices to read their ebooks.

[Guest LilBambi]

I have an older nook that I like and do use, but for convenience of only carrying a single deivce, I really prefer to read on my iDevice.

Edited December 13, 2012 by LilBambi

[Cluttermagnet]

E-books? E-readers? Never seriously considered them. I wouldn't have even if DRM didn't exist. How much more do I hate DRM-encumbered digital cr*p than plain vanilla digital cr*p? Quite a lot, actually.

 

They haven't figured out how to retroactively 'un-sell' my paper books yet. I'm sure they're working on it, though.

[Guest LilBambi]

We have many books! Real dead tree books. We love books and reading.

 

But I do really like that I can enlarge the text to my liking without having to use a magnifying glass to enjoy the books. Paperbacks have fast become very difficult for me. Hard cover are a bit better but they too are becoming troublesome.

[Webb]

The beauty of low tech. Go to a discount store and buy some non-prescription reading glasses.

 

I bought 3 pairs (office, bedroom, bathroom) for $1 each.

[Guest LilBambi]

Yep, you are right Webb.

 

I have a pair already. I like them, and they work OK. I use them for reading dead tree books, but it is more comfortable and less blurry at the edges of my vision if I read eBooks.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I have those cheater reading glasses all over my house and workshop. Fortunately, I only need the 1X at this time. They're CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP on eBay.