Amazon Is Collecting Your Kindle Highlights & Notes 211
TechDirt catches Amazon playing fast and loose with data that consumers may think is private — namely, their highlights and notes entered into Kindle books. "Amazon will now remotely upload and store the user notes and highlights you take on your Kindle, which it then compiles into 'popular highlights.' I have no doubt that the feature provides some interesting data, but it's not clear that users realize their highlighting and notes are being stored and used that way. Amazon basically says there's no big privacy deal here, because the data is always aggregated. But it sounds like many users don't realize this is happening at all. Amazon says people can find out they added this feature by reading 'forum posts and help pages.' ... [This situation] once again highlights a key concern in that the 'features' of your 'book' can change over time. Your highlighting may have been yours in the past, but suddenly it becomes Amazon's with little notice."
Deceptive description (Score:5, Informative)
As a Kindle 2 owner who just had his Kindle updated to 2.5 firmware (which has this feature), I can tell you that this feature is off by default. In order for Amazon to actually share your highlights (of course, who knows if they're collecting it silently in the background; it's their system after all), you have to actively turn on this feature.
I've also seen Kindle for iPad. I don't recall whether this feature was on by default, but it is rather prominently displayed on their relatively simple options menu. If you have privacy concerns, it's fairly simple to turn it off.
RTFM (Score:5, Informative)
Kindle User's Guide (pdf) [amazonaws.com], page 99. Notes and highlights have been backed up to Amazon's servers since the v1 launch, and you can easily turn off sync of your own data.
You can enable or disable automatic backup by following the steps below:
1. If you are not already on the Home screen, press the Home button.
2. Press the Menu button.
3. Move the 5-way to underline "Settings" and press to select.
4. Press the Menu button.
5. Move the 5-way to underline "Disable/Enable Annotations Backup" and press to select.
Why should I care that Amazon builds an aggregate summary?
Re:A Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
Oh wait, they do.
That must burst your bubble.
Re:A Simple Solution (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Title is a goddamn sonofabitch phony (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Deceptive description (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Deceptive description (Score:5, Informative)
There are still logs that report device coordinates, cell tower coordinates, titles of books read, etc to Amazon. Supposedly it's all for 'diagnostic' purposes but who knows.
Of course you can just keep your wireless turned off and that information never gets reported and there are also some hacks out there to disable the logging (as shown here [mobileread.com]).
Re:Intellectual property theft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is why (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Intellectual property theft (Score:1, Informative)
Isn't it interesting that the very people that get all righteous about "intellectual property" can't read and understand the fact that it's Opt In. Don't like it; don't opt in.
Re:This is why (Score:4, Informative)
OK, I'll go ahead and admit that: It is cool and it does have uses. However it has problems, too.
To give a very very specific example: Amazon has recently suspended my account. It's not that they told me about it - it's just that my password suddenly stopped working, and when going through the password reset process I found the new one wasn't working either. Only when I contacted them through their contact form did they actually tell me that they suspended the account. They said they were investigating something with another similar account which had a problem. They didn't tell me what they were investigating, they didn't tell me how long they were planning to investigate, just asked me for "patience". The email can't be replied to either. To give some context: I checked my records, and I have been buying stuff from them since at least 1997, as far as I am aware they never had the slightest problem with me in that time.
I did some web searching and it seems that this sort of thing is something Amazon does fairly often, they seem to have some sort of system which they use to try and detect fraud and apparently it triggers on some rather weird things (lives at the same address as someone they had problems with in the past, has the same last name as someone they have problems with ... stuff like that). Of course they are entitled to chose who they do business with (and so it should be) so there is really no recourse against this.
As you can imagine I'm fairly pissed at them, but everything I bought from them over the years is still available to me, everything I own I can still use. There are other suppliers of books, mp3s and electronics - if they don't want my business I can and will take it elsewhere.
I'm not sure how much all this would affect me if I owned a Kindle, but I don't think I would want to buy one now. (Well, it's not like they'd let me anyway ...)
I'll take this as a reminder not to entrust anything important to "the cloud" and continue not to buy DRM products.
Re:This is why (Score:2, Informative)
There's probably a fair bit of history behind those laws. Just hope we don't have to go through it all over again. Or worse, we get stuck back in the crap old days.
Nowadays the law seems to be: "When you have a monopoly, it's near-absolutely yours for 120* years, muahahahaha" (* subject to future renewals). Or "When you own something, you're not liable for anything, and you can change the rules whenever you like to whatever you like, and you can kick people out for no reason whatsoever". They like to claim it's a service when it suits them, and it's property when it suits them.
I don't call it progress at all. After all even thousands of years ago there were laws like:
Deuteronomy 23:24 If you enter your neighbor's vineyard, you may eat all the grapes you want, but do not put any in your basket. 25 If you enter your neighbor's grainfield, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain.
Deuteronomy 24:19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.
Ownership was not absolute. You're a farmer who has toiled hard over the land, and you're still supposed to allow random people to walk in and eat the crops...
Re:Title is a goddamn sonofabitch phony (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RTFM (Score:3, Informative)
Why should I care that Amazon builds an aggregate summary?
What if your (admittedly stupid) note said "This passage is exactly what happened to my wife, Jenny Smith, last night at our home address of 12345 Stupid street in Stupidville."? Or more likely, you annotated someone's name and address or phone number in your kindle because you had it with you by the pool, but you didn't have your phone.
Nothing. Because that scenario cannot possible happen and is simply paranoia.
Everyone is trying to come up with scenarios that turn this into an invasion of the user's privacy, but if you take a look at the facts rather than assuming the worst you'll see that there is no privacy concern at all:
- The data is anonymized
- The data is only published in aggregate
- The change was publicised in the Kindle forums, by email and in a new manual being sent out
- The change only sends highlights, not annotations. (The Techdirt writer seems to have misunderstood the article they cited and invented the annotations part)
- The setting defaults to off.
If you can come up with a possible invasion of the user's privacy based on the actual change Amazon have made I'll be impressed.
Re:Repeat after me (Repetition Indeed) (Score:3, Informative)
It is the fact that, once I buy a (e)-book, I don't want to hear from or interact with the publisher ever again concerning that purchase. Money exchanged, goods recieved, and that's the end of it. Period and finished.
And that's neat, and I feel where you're coming from, but most people really don't care. If Amazon can find a buck or two in value using something that people don't even notice the impact of giving, it's a sustainable enough business model.
There's no reason why an e-reader necessarily HAS to have communications capability. Most don't. Use those if this matters to you so much. I have a Sony Reader myself, and only communicated with them once for a firmware upgrade immediately after purchase (to add support for the open ePub file format). I don't even buy books through their store.