Yes, the Facebook stalking and data mining is creepy. But can it hurt me in any way? The answer to that question is what would determine if I delete my account.
The most direct hurt could be from finances for one. In one of the articles, they mention that FB know your online banking activities and note what you are doing, for example TranferMoney.
I just had to replace my e-reader this week. I’d had a Nook in the past, and downloaded a lot of library books. I kept the wireless turned off, and delete the books off the device when done. I’m pretty sure B&N didn’t have a view into what I was borrowing from the library. But… the Nook library is clunky on it’s best day, and a nightmare on it’s worst (Adobe Digital Editions – don’t get me started).
So I bought a new Nook, thinking maybe they’ve improved some of those issues. After 3 teeth-gnashing hours attempting to get the library download function to work, I returned it. I went to the dark side and bought a Kindle.
And… now that I’ve downloaded my first library book, I realized that they do it through your Amazon Account. So Amazon is collecting a list of every book you check out of the library. And that bugs me. A lot. I did some research, and determined:
- Amazon is also tracking what you do with every book. How long it takes you to read it, if you quit halfway through or skip parts, etc. I can't tell if turning off the Wi-Fi on the device (or going into airplane mode) stops that data collection or not.
- There doesn't seem to be any way to delete your history of checked out books/etc from your Amazon account.
- It doesn't seem like there are many laws protecting that information -- California seems to have a state law protecting it, but that is about it from my initial Googling. The Patriot Act requires certain steps to get ahold of a list of what you read from your library (don't get me started on that clause, I also find it very offensive, esp. because the library can't even tell you that the request was made). But I suspect it is much easier for them to get this info from Amazon if any legal authority wanted it.
Grrr…
Where is your source?
@Intparent, I’ve never checked out books, only bought them, but I have deleted them completely from my library.
And you don’t think Amazon still has a list of what you’ve been reading? Which, if I bought the book, might be justified. But Amazon doesn’t deserve a list of what I checked out of the library. Let alone whether I read it, how long I spent, etc.
Probably.
Like I said earlier, I feel pretty powerless. I think all these efforts to preserve our privacy are too little too late. It’s sickening, but now that the horse is out of the barn, what can be done?
@cbreeze In one of the articles I linked. “TansferMoney” was the exact phrase used in the article.
@intparent, what app were you using with the Nook. I use the app/program Overdrive. Haven’t had a problem. Not sure what information they collect.
Take what Google/Facebook and our advertisers know and then add facial recognition. The minority report is here. I expected a few more years before it happened.
That sounds like a defeat! If we can stop or limit them going forward, soon some of our data may be too outdated to be useful. “Back from a trip a week ago” is a lot more telling than “back from a trip a year ago.”
I downloaded my data from FB. They have my contacts from 10 years ago well before I joined FB. They must have swept my contact list. At one point I was involved in helping out a few organizations and had email addresses of everybody who belonged to the organizations, literally thousands. They are not my FB friends. Is there anyway I can delete them without using Chrome?
My library doesn’t use Overdrive. You need to download the Adobe version to Adobe Digital Editions, then move to the Nook.
@intparent As annoying as that maybe, Amazon is collecting your data within your act at Amazon. FB was collecting data from everywhere, within your FB activity or outside of FB. That is far more intrusive. You can’t make up a complete profile of a person just by a reading list but if they have your reading list, knows where you go, what you buy, who you meet, etc, their profile is probably more accurate than what you know about yourself.
Different people draw the line at different places. And anything I posted on FB or clicked on, I decided to do within the FB environment. I never doubted it was being tracked, parsed, used, and sold, probably in ways beyond their TOS. But no one should be able to have my library reading list except the library.
D1 and I are going to go to Prague together soon. She sent me a link to a bicycle tour she wants to take. As soon as I arrived at the website, a popup came on, saying “Hi, nrdsb4! How can we help you?” It had my first name, my maiden name, and my last name, just as it appears on my FB. I’m not logged in to FB on this laptop, so how is this possible?
@intparent, you don’t get to draw a line, I think. That’s the outrage. Chances are that your library list is also owned by FB as well as Amazon if my understanding from the past week is correct. FB doesn’t own you only while you are on FB. It also owns you when you logged out once you sign up with FB. They get to track you wherever you go whether you are logged in or not.
I think that is an extreme reading of what is going on with FB. I work in IT, and have been reading articles and trying to understand the issues the past few weeks. If you interact with FB in some way from an outside site (say I share an article I read on CNN to FB, then FB knows I use the CNN site - duh). If I choose to use my FB id to logon to a site (sometimes an option), then obviously they have that info. Heck, CC has that option, but I have no idea why, since College CONFIDENTIAL isn’t so “confidential” if you use that function – I never have. Facebook owns Instagram – so if you post there, you can be confident that FB has that data, too. (I don’t, I only use Instagram to follow others and don’t post my own stuff out there).
I think that FB has been a bad actor, has been manipulated to push political messages and fake news in ways they should have anticipated and stopped, and your FB data has maybe been harvested by apps that your friends use (and used against FB rules, but they didn’t actually take concrete steps to enforce). But generally you still KNOW when you are giving data to FB. You just can’t assume any of it stays particularly private, especially from people trying to sell you something or convince you of something. But this idea that if I leave FB, go to another site, and FB is following me (any more than any other site’s cookies are “following me”) just isn’t right.
So if you don’t want FB to have your data, or possible misuse it, best to stop using it.
But my library book checkouts are personal – reading is huge part of my identify. I’ve read thousands of books in my like, and for me, that is a red line. I don’t want someone marketing to me (or for any other reason) knowing what my reading habits are. None of their beeswax. I don’t use Goodreads for that very reason – I don’t want Amazon knowing my past reading list or my TBR list.
I just want an e-reader with a fairly seamless interface and no one tracking my library reading list. But it seems to be too much to ask.
I wish it were an extreme reading of FB. FB even collects some people’s phone call and texts when they were carried outside of FB. How did they do it if they weren’t following you around? How did FB know I was back from a trip a week ago when I didn’t even log in to FB let alone announce my trip on FB? I don’t have an Instagram and rarely use FB. The only thing I can think of is the map I was using while on the road. I will be traveling again in. a few days. I would be curious to see if FB finds it out again.
I downloaded my FB data too. It has all my friends, even the ones I deleted (they are in a different list). But on the apps page, it only shows the ones I currently use. No list of past apps.
It has all my contacts. Worst of all, under “events”, it has every event I’ve clicked on. Each one of these contains an enormous amount of data and must be valuable to sell. It is the same for “ads”. It’s one thing for them to count when someone clicks on an ad, it’s another thing to save that info and tie it to a person forever (and by ad, it could be anything, not something that specifically looks like it’s selling a product or service, ads include things you’ve clicked “like” on, even if it’s just “clouds” or something innocuous like that).