I perhaps am a bit paranoically challenged, but so long as this feature
doesn't disclose anything lower than the domain-level, I can't see the
violation of personal privacy here. Frankly, it seems far more tame than
the common practice of magazine venders who sell my name and address coded
by my political interests, hobbies, and personal interests. (If you want
to test this assertion subscribe to both the Nation AND Human Events and
see what shows up in your mailbox).
I myself am a little more concerned at Amazon.com's somewhat lukewarm
personal privacy policy where they aver that they do not "sell, trade, or
rent your personal information to others" but they "may choose to do so in
the future with trustworthy third parties, but you can tell us not to by
sending a blank e-mail message to never@amazon.com." Advice: Send this
email. They also note that "Amazon.com may provide aggregate statistics
about our customers, sales, traffic patterns, and related site information
to reputable third-party vendors, but these statistics will include no
personally identifying information" -- which seems to me to be a common
commercial practice.
I can see where certain institutions may have a beef, although I was
heartened to see that my fellow uky.edu'rs had decent taste in books and
excellent taste in music (U2, Steve Earle, Ry Cooder).
And, no, those weren't my last three purchases.
KXM
P.S. I did see that our fellow state university University of Louisville
is buying up copies of The Prince
by Niccolo Machiavelli. Mmmm, maybe THAT's why that they are making out so
well getting funding from the governor...
****************************************************
Kurt X. Metzmeier, J.D., M.S.L.I.S.
Coordinator of Information Systems Services
University of Kentucky College of Law
L126 UK Law Library
Lexington KY 40506-0048
PH 606.257.1359 FAX 606.323.4906
email: kmetz1@pop.uky.edu
www: http://www.uky.edu/Law/CISS/
****************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:50:10 PST