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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Register is reporting on the issues raised by an anecdote about how library e-book reading habits get reflected in mobile ads [theregister.com], with the observation that tracking is occurring and with the underlying question being about how the tracking is occurring. The context is that many libraries use DRM'd mobile phone apps to allow limited, temporary access to e-books to the subset of patrons willing to install the app to the subset of patrons willing to agree to the app's terms of service to the subset of patrons with smart phones.

In December, 2023, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign information sciences professor Masooda Bashir led a study titled "Patron Privacy Protections in Public Libraries" that was published in The Library Quarterly. The study found that while libraries generally have basic privacy protections, there are often gaps in staff training and in privacy disclosures made available to patrons.

It also found that some libraries rely exclusively on social media for their online presence. "That is very troubling," said Bashir in a statement [illinois.edu]. "Facebook collects a lot of data – everything that someone might be reading and looking at. That is not a good practice for public libraries."

Salo said that the amount of visitor-tracking scripts on many library websites is just beyond the pale.

"I have been watching actually the situation with healthcare organizations getting absolutely nailed to the wall for Google pixels and Facebook pixels and what have you, as potential HIPAA violations," she said.

"And you know, it's the same kind of thing [with libraries]. If we think this stuff is confidential, we should act like it and we're very frequently not. So yes, I am absolutely on a one-librarian war against Google and Facebook pixels. That just has got to stop."

— The Register, An attorney says she saw her library reading habits reflected in mobile ads. That's not supposed to happen. [theregister.com]

The assertion is that this level of tracking is not supposed to happen with library services, as per professional decisions by earlier generations of librarians. The terms of service and licensing which both the libraries and their patrons gave the nod to may even explicitly allow the surveillance and warn of it buried in scores of pages of legalese. Be that as it may, the apps creators (and the purchasers, the libraries) may even be unknowingly affected by trackers built into the Software Development Kits used to build the app [vox.com]. Thus the bigger question is why so many librarians and their patrons have become so unversed in mobile ICT as to buy and deploy such DRMed software-as-a-service, which contain two kinds of violations of basic rights: digital restrictions and tracking. Academic librarian, Dorothea Salo, is off to a good start in mitigating the problems but there is a lot to catch up on.

For what its worth, there are DRM [defectivebydesign.org]-free, public domain options including LibriVox [librivox.org] for audio books and Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org] for e-books in several formats. Some regions will have their own analog for public domain literature, such as Project Runeberg [runeberg.org] for Nordic literature in the public domain.

Original Submission