To LEM: Wow, yet another person who doesn’t know what “in aggregate” means and hasn’t read T’s article which explains it. There is NO selling to advertisers of our personal information, which it says so very clearly in the privacy policy. “No personal identifying information is available to clients or partners.” What don’t you understand about that? From T’s blog –

“The key words are ‘in aggregate only.’ ‘In aggregate only’ means that no individual information– no credit-card numbers, no e-mail addresses, no library cards– is shared. What is shared are things like demographic information and yearly income: ‘the audience for this work appears to be 75% female and 50% in their twenties.’ Aggregate info, not individual info.”

One major purpose of this is simply for the decision of what ad to place at the front of each PDF you download from WOWIO. I’ve been a member of WOWIO for a month now and I’ve received zero spam e-mails from them in that time and no money has been stolen from my credit card — a miracle!

“the central thrust of the positive news I’ve been hearing seems to be ‘We’re making money, so it’s OK’ ”

This makes zero sense and I have no clue why anyone would say that. The central thrust of the positive news is that there’s NO NEGATIVE NEWS WHATSOEVER OF ANY KIND, except the kind INVENTED by people like you and Gary because you CAN’T READ and you’re just super scared people in general apparently, and those would be the nice reasons for it.

“Other people have made far better points, in this regard that you have, I’m sorry to say.”

If you’re talking to me, what’s your damn point? Why would I need to make points when T already posted a comment right here and I’d of course be going under the assumption that anyone actually commenting here would have read that? You apparently either didn’t read it or didn’t comprehend it, just like you didn’t read or didn’t comprehend the WOWIO privacy policy in the first place.

I went and hand a look at the Privacy Policy myself and did some asking around to find out how it actually works, and I’m still not entirely sure why the advertising set up would ever require me to give up a piece of sensitive ID which is going to be very valuable to someone who trades in identity.

Site E-mail, ok. I’d be willing to give that up. I do every day.

But… Passport? Drivers License? Credit Card number with no goods involved? This isn’t giving my money to someone on eBay or Amazon for a good or service, this is letting someone use it as a way of checking all my details.

Which I then have no control over. I also do not know if the employees are particularly trustworthy.

Another point that keeps coming up in my mind is Credit Agencies are going to ask very awkward questions if I said “Oh, well, I gave my number to these people on the Internet for nothing once…” if my card details were stolen somehow. I’m not even saying that WOWIO *would* let there be a breach, but purely from a stance of taking all available precautions it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

For the record, I have a bad enough time giving up my Passport to government agencies, let alone some place in America that doesn’t seem to have a equivalent to the Data Protection Act.

“All this nonsense about being “sold to advertisersâ€? is disgusting and false”

Well, actually… do you perchance have the bit of the Privacy Policy which says that that isn’t exactly what happens in order for it to work? You are, by definition, sold to sponsors. Your details are used as a basis for a monetary transaction between the sponsor and the company. No matter how innocent that may well be, that’s still “sold to sponsors”. Unless I’ve completely misunderstood how WOWIO works.

You’re being entered into a database somewhere and sorted into a demographic based on who you are, what you’re interested in, the function of your junk, your age and possibly where you live.

And, where I now skirt with considerable controversy for saying so, to be honest, the central thrust of the positive news I’ve been hearing seems to be “We’re making money, so it’s OK”… I’m not saying it is by any means totally accurate of everyone or even anyone, but if this is more about money than doing everything possible to ensure readers privacy, we really have to look into what drives us as creators in my humble opinion. Choose any other justification you like, but don’t choose “So? We’re making money” over concerns about privacy. Other people have made far better points (mentioning that it’s not a fly-by-night operation, it has media coverage and exhibits at BookExpo) in this regard that you have, I’m sorry to say.

LOL, where have you been?

“it seems less shifty if you use the less shifty option”

There’s nothing in any conceivable way shifty about it. Are you the same type of people who refuse to buy things on eBay and Amazon because you’re “scared” of who-knows-what? I’ll tell you what’s a lot worse than mudslinging — posts like Gary’s that say TOTALLY FALSE things about Wowio for no purpose that I can see other than as a crazy attempt to take money out of the pockets of people who make comics. He either doesn’t know what “in aggregate” means or he’s incapable of reading entire sentences and comprehending them or he’s a total liar. All this nonsense about being “sold to advertisers” is disgusting and false and I sure hope an edit and retraction is imminent. He should definitely not be posting these things as if he somehow knows what he’s talking about when he either hasn’t properly researched it and/or can’t understand words of more than two syllables.

I’m personally still not convinced, after a brief discussion (not really a discussion, livejournal comments) about it, and hearing from someone who actually has signed up for the service and got their side of it… it seems less shifty if you use the less shifty option, but I’m still not entirely sure I trust it with very sensitive data for a multitude of reasons.

Giving out my e-mail address is one thing, but I can’t set spam assassin on my postman…

I mean fuck you.