Today the Electronic Frontier Foundation is testifying at a hearing on the Google Books Settlement, arguing the company's ebook service will track what people read online. Worried about your book-reading privacy? EFF has also just released an e-book privacy guide.
Yesterday EFF published a list of privacy and property concerns e-book readers should have prior to signing with a digital book service. According to EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn - who is at the Google Book Settlement hearing in Manhattan - digital book readers must be afforded the same protections as those of us who get our literature fix from dead trees:
Our coalition is asking the court to ensure that Google's huge new digital library/bookstore maintains the strong protections for reader privacy that traditional libraries and bookstores have fought for and largely won.
Among those questions the EFF advises readers to consider are "Does [your e-book reader/service/tool] protect your privacy?" (i.e. "Does it track what you read and how long?") and "Is it censorship-resistant?" ("Can a work be retroactively edited after you purchase it?"). Big ups to the EFF for presenting the legal rigmarole of the e-book debate in a totally lucid way - the entire list of concerns can be found below at their site.
Read the whole list of questions via EFF.