FTA: Research in the US and other countries estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of people have met current psychiatric diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder sometime in their lives. But the brain plays crucial roles in promoting survival and reproduction, so the pressures of evolution should have left our brains resistant to such high rates of malfunction. Mental disorders should generally be rare -- why isn't depression?

Because depression is not, fundamentally, a mental disorder. It is wired into every human brain .. anyone subject to repeated setbacks, social neglect or ostracism, or trapped in an unpleasant situation with no solution will likely begin to suffer depression. The brain 'shuts down' (http://psychweb.cisat.jmu.edu/ToKSystem/My%20ToK%20Papers/BSM%20Final.pdf) so as to minimize emotional risk as well as consumption of resources. If we were pack animals, the animal would remove itself from the pack and thus the safety in numbers, to either starve or be taken by a predator. That way the pack doesn't waste time supporting a 'useless' (at best) or 'parasitic' (at worst) member of the pack.

A better metaphor would be a newsstand that has its own regular delivery systems, tracking people's home and office addresses and dispatching paperboys to distribute them around. So the newsstand would have its own database of subscriber information. And I know for a fact that anyone who sells subscriptions to the Journal or any other newspaper is expected to give subscriber information to the publisher, or the publisher will not let them sell subscriptions on their behalf.

If you can choose to buy individual papers one at a time, sure. But the story specifically mentioned subscribers. These are people who expect to read the publication regularly. These are the people whose demographics are of interest to Murdoch.

FTA: Murdoch acknowledged that the Journal recently negotiated a slightly larger share of the revenues Amazon gets from selling Kindle subscriptions to the paper (emphasis added)

That's a fine argument on its face, but do you really expect all information (name, address, phone) gathered from dead-tree subscribers will ONLY be used for the purposes of distributing the newspaper? I would expect the Journal to treat my personal information with the same privacy policy stipulations as applies to that gathered on behalf of their print newspaper. If they are not, they need to say so in a EULA or whatever.

Also, if you have ever subscribed to a magazine or newspaper online, you will see that they collect LOTS of additional information about you that has nothing to do with simple delivery. They gather that data because they NEED and USE it to distinguish their readers' demographics from those of other publications, which helps them sell advertising, which keeps them in business. If you think you can run a magazine or newspaper solely on subscriptions, you know nothing about the industry.

Murdoch may be a dick, but his expectation of subscriber information from Amazon is not unreasonable. GIving them ultimatums is, but that's another issue.

> And what about all those customers who purchase their papers from newsstands or vending machines? Do they have to turn over their personal information? No

They are not subscribers, so your argument is baseless. Subscribers are people who have an ongoing relationship with the publication.

I can see why he expects this information... he's a publisher who's spent the lion's share of his career dealing in print media. If people were subscribing to the dead-tree edition of the Journal, he would have not just their names but their home addresses and probably phone numbers as well. Now subscribers want to pay for the same publication--the Wall Street Journal--and the publisher expects to have the same information they would if they were sending the physical newspaper. What's the big deal? Just cause something is delivered electronically rather than via the post, that makes basic subscriber information suddenly privacy-threatening?

I'm as paranoid about privacy concerns as the next [rational] person, but I don't see what the big deal is here.

> as the abused get smarter, the abusers also get smarter at an equal or quicker pace

As an Apple consumer my whole adult life, I am getting fed up with their abuse. There is a freedom I am entitled to when I purchase their (or anyone's) products .. it is the freedom of OWNERSHIP, to do with it what I wish (that isn't outright illegal or causes harm to others), and Apple seems hell-bent on stripping me of that freedom. I expect this kind of draconian top-down use-policing from Microsoft .. not from Apple. It's getting to the point where I can't even tell the difference.