Top Twos-Day: Big Brother? Public Libraries and E-Books
July 3, 2012
William Duke via Wall Street Journal online
Two interesting stories popped in my inbox, one was left as a comment on my blog by aFrankAngle – special thanks for bringing this to my attention! Please watch the full video, there is an important point to the seemingly outrageous behavior: Support Your Local Library.
The other was a news article in the Wall Street Journal: Your E-Book is Reading You…yes, a version of big brother…read more. Now you know, or is ignorance the bliss you seek?
BTW, did you catch our ideal of the perfect man to the left of the article? Bonus Top Two-day 
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View Roxie Hanna's profile
Gee that second one was a lonnng article, but I got the gist of it. I’m so tired of “companies” following me around for sales purposes. I already get rid of my cookies every time I log off the computer. Now I have to find out how to turn off the ebook spy.
So far I’ve only put a couple of free short books on my iPod, but I use it only intermittently for internet purposes — when I’m at a cafe or something. I wonder if that renders me mostly invisible to the spies? Probably not. They’re insidious. Thanks for the heads up.
It was at that…good idea, delete cookies, glad to pass the info on, Sparks…namaste
Roxie – Great mind-benders – - – Good for Troy Library, very innovative on their part!
As far as E-Books are concerned – shame on us (once again) if we didn’t realize that ‘Big Business’ would track us as easily as ‘Big Brother’ does.
kudos to them! brilliant idea, and yes, big biz is tracking our moves…interesting to see peeps surprised reactions, thanks Claire!
Oh it’s an interesting future we’re heading into …
isn’t it? where we’re going Geoffrey…do we even comprehend the gravity?
All about “mind games…” Now you’ve got ME thinking.
good, glad to hear you’re pondering these things, Linda…we need to know, always cause knowledge empowers
Three HUGE cheers for the creative thinking of the people who fought for the Troy Library –and beat the shyte out of the Naysaying Tea- Party folks who refused to support the Troy Library. What a GREAT idea–a Book Burning Party planned on facebook to get attention for the real NEED. Thanks for the link to that video, Roxie — and aFrankAngle too!
The e-book publishing and marketing research into readers is very interesting–and in some ways unsettling considering the public’s general lack of awareness of how their reading habits are being monitored.
Lots to think about here. Wow!
My thoughts too, Eva…certainly got my attention!
I’m trying to bring stuff out that others may miss or skim over, we’re not seeing the big brother story on the news yet. An aware consumer is a savvy one, so now we know – very unsettling about our reading habits, especially when I consider the ability to track highlighted sections and pages completed vs length to read each book. That’s a lot of info for them to organize and use…however they please.
“Organize and use” and manipulate–as they please indeed, Roxie.
right? interesting to consider our phone ‘tracks’ hope peeps consider that too…
While I have nothing to hide about my reading habits, I always embrace any story that can help me to better loathe e-books.
“Give me paper or give me death,” may be a bit extreme, so I will just say, “I would very much prefer paper, thank you!”
I had no idea you loathed e-books Mike
It is rather eye opening, but not surprising that the technology is there to ‘track’ users, stacks the deck in favor of the sweet smell of paper, for sure.
Thanks for the heads up! I will check out these articles…
thanks SCB…when you do, let me know your thoughts, particularly the video – peeps either love it or hate it