[jvolkman]

> if I could pay to have the spying/data gathering turned off, like the Kindles offer with ads/no ads

What makes you think that paying to disable ads also disables data gathering? Does Amazon say this?

[guitarbill]

No mate, it was just an example, an analogy. Although my Kindle works pretty well without internet connectivity. Much harder to do with a phone, kind of defeats the purpose.