Seems like taking a Nexus 7 and gutting its OS simply to make a privacy-conscious eReader is a waste of a perfectly good tablet. Wouldn't it be easier and probably cheaper just to get a "dumb" e-reader (i.e. some kind of Kobo)?
Well, it still does all the other Ubuntu things, and it is a cheap tablet. My survey of the ereader space didn't turn up anything I liked, or that seemed to come without strings. It is very possible that I missed an obvious and better.