6 ms·

I mention that the data that appears to be used for those purposes is sent again in a separate request to a separate end point, so we have two types of requests

I mention that the data that appears to be used for those purposes is sent again in a separate request to a separate end point, so we have two types of requests: last read location, and reading analytics. Sorry it wasn't clear, I'll try to improve the wording.

falcolas 6y ago
Will you also be updating and noting that the requests to Wikipedia and Bing are for explicit customer-benefiting features? Might be worth noting that you can opt out of their data collection (on the e-reader, at a minimum) as well. Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Privacy or in the device management console in your account on amazon.com
- danShumway 6y ago
  The text in question: > Highlighting or tapping any word will send the requests with the text to Bing Translate and Wikipedia, as well as back to Amazon. Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the "translate" button? Is there a reason why it needs to be sent to Amazon?
  - fouric 6y ago
    > Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the "translate" button? Yes - UX latency. I would expect this kind of thing to take a few thousand milliseconds, and shaving off a few hundred milliseconds from between when the user highlights text and when they select "translate" is significant. The fact that this data is being sent to Wikipedia of all places further signals that the usage is likely to be innocuous. Do I think that this is globally a good design decision? No, for both engineering and privacy reasons. There's definitely no good reason why it should be sent to Amazon at all.
    - falcolas 6y ago
      > There's definitely no good reason why it should be sent to Amazon at all. I was wracking my brain on this, and all I could come up with was "to independently verify the invoicing for Bing translations" and "how many times are people accessing the definition/translation and not highlighting". So, analytics, not something that explicitly benefits the user.
      - benmller313 6y ago
        Can we stop pretending that analytics don't explicitly benefit the user? Product Engineering organizations rely on analytics to improve user experiences.
        naikrovek 6y ago
        Analytics can be done less granularly and still benefit the user. Also, surely not every data point collected is used to benefit the user. For example, Amazon doesn't need to know where I am when I request a definition or translation. If they're concerned about usage, they only need to know how many times I actually used one or both of those features per day, per week, or month. They don't need to know instantly every single time a word is highlighted.
        edanm 6y ago
        > Analytics can be done less granularly and still benefit the user. Also, surely not every data point collected is used to benefit the user. How? For all we know, it isn't granular - it might be aggregated at the server level to hide specific user's actions. But they'd still need to be sending in the data from the device to the server.
        wongarsu 6y ago
        The device could keep a daily count of interesting actions, and sync that to analytics servers on a daily or weekly basis. That preserves 95% of legitimate use cases while leaking much less private data (like how my reading habits are distributed across the day)
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      The screen refresh rate on these devices is measured in seconds, so a few hundred millis of network latency is impossible to display.
      - fouric 6y ago
        This isn't universally true - Dan Luu's computer latency page[1] lists three Kindles, all below 900 ms of latency. And, since some devices have latency as low as 570 ms, it makes sense that they would use this optimization. [1] https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - shajznnckfke 6y ago
        That doesn’t seem right. Let’s consider the screen refresh to be like a subway station, where the train shows up every few seconds. We need the text we want to show to the user to be at the stop waiting when the train arrives. If we miss the train, we need to wait for the next train to get our text on the screen. The network latency delays when we show up to wait at the station. If the refresh rate is 5 seconds, and the network response time is 500ms, than eliminating the 500ms response time means we are 10% less likely to miss the train. On average, the time for the text to appear on the screen decreases by 500ms. All this assumes the refreshes happening on a static schedule. If the software can trigger the refresh, then it’s a lot simpler. The 500ms improvement in latency would apply equally to every engagement with the translate feature.
        freeone3000 6y ago
        There's no static schedule. It's an e-ink display. Refreshes happen when software tells it to display something new and take several hundred millis per blank - and a screen can be up to three blanks (because if it doesn't go white-black-display, then some pixels get stuck "on" or "off" or "halfway").
  - larrik 6y ago
    On the iOS app it all appears instantly-ish when I highlight, so I'm guessing it's just the same codebase.
  - majormajor 6y ago
    There isn't a "translate button" - the selection of the word i the button for define/translate/wiki. You swipe between the three cards. I like this, as a user. I don't want MORE buttons to tap through when I'm trying to define or translate a word. Especially since the Kindle eink screen and UI is not the most responsive.
  - jonahrd 6y ago
    This is literally my #1 used feature of my Kindle. I read texts in different languages to have a quick access to single-tap translations. If it took 2 taps, I would switch platforms.
- halbritt 6y ago
  > Might be worth noting that you can opt out of their data collection (on the e-reader, at a minimum) as well. Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Privacy or in the device management console in your account on amazon.com Good tip, I'm going to give this a whirl. Unfortunately, all the network calls add a significant amount of latency even if one didn't care about privacy.
Hitton 6y ago
I liked the article. If you are gonna update it, please consider also mentioning technical aspect. Frankly, Amazon snooping on users is to be expected, but short mention of app for which platform have you analysed using which tools would be welcome addition.
- ballenf 6y ago
  > Frankly, Amazon snooping on users is to be expected Snooping on users during e-commerce transactions, sure. But recording user's detailed interactions with every ebook? I hope that's a big surprise to your average Kindle user. It would be great to see a data request response and how much of this data is retained and for how long. It's clearly not anonymized at the request level. Very easy to see a future where just reading certain books or reading certain books too many times could flag you as dangerous or be used to support a mental incompetence hearing resulting in loss of rights.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > But recording user's detailed interactions with every ebook? I hope that's a big surprise to your average Kindle user. I doubt it. Here are some features the Kindle phone app intentionally advertises to the user: - prediction of how long the book will take to complete, based on your reading rate - tracking of whether or not you read anything on any given day
TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Can you provide the URLs so we can use pihole to block the requests?
- boogies 6y ago
  (off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?
  - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    They both work similarly if you're using them to block outbound requests, but a Pi-Hole would intercept and block outbound requests for every device on the network where it's installed, whereas editing /etc/hosts would only block requests on a single device (unless that device is your router, I guess?)
  - garblegarble 6y ago
    >(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts? It's good for cases exactly like this - devices where you don't have control over /etc/hosts (or where you have lots of them and don't want to keep the hosts files in sync). I use it for my Samsung TV to keep them from phoning home (but still letting me use apps) Edit: you can also set up a DoH endpoint and filter traffic while also allowing Encrypted SNI to work
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      > It's good for cases exactly like this - devices where you don't have control over /etc/hosts Is the pihole a DNS server or a firewall? Sibling comments suggest it's a DNS server, but that doesn't answer this need at all -- if you don't control /etc/hosts, you don't control the device. It can do its resolution however it wants. Most obviously, it can include the domain names you don't want it to reach in its own /etc/hosts file, which you just said you didn't control.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    That it works for all devices on your network. Even ones that don't have an etc/hosts :)

falcolas 6y ago

Will you also be updating and noting that the requests to Wikipedia and Bing are for explicit customer-benefiting features? Might be worth noting that you can opt out of their data collection (on the e-reader, at a minimum) as well. Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Privacy or in the device management console in your account on amazon.com

danShumway 6y ago
The text in question: > Highlighting or tapping any word will send the requests with the text to Bing Translate and Wikipedia, as well as back to Amazon. Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the "translate" button? Is there a reason why it needs to be sent to Amazon?
- fouric 6y ago
  > Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the "translate" button? Yes - UX latency. I would expect this kind of thing to take a few thousand milliseconds, and shaving off a few hundred milliseconds from between when the user highlights text and when they select "translate" is significant. The fact that this data is being sent to Wikipedia of all places further signals that the usage is likely to be innocuous. Do I think that this is globally a good design decision? No, for both engineering and privacy reasons. There's definitely no good reason why it should be sent to Amazon at all.
  - falcolas 6y ago
    > There's definitely no good reason why it should be sent to Amazon at all. I was wracking my brain on this, and all I could come up with was "to independently verify the invoicing for Bing translations" and "how many times are people accessing the definition/translation and not highlighting". So, analytics, not something that explicitly benefits the user.
    - benmller313 6y ago
      Can we stop pretending that analytics don't explicitly benefit the user? Product Engineering organizations rely on analytics to improve user experiences.
      - naikrovek 6y ago
        Analytics can be done less granularly and still benefit the user. Also, surely not every data point collected is used to benefit the user. For example, Amazon doesn't need to know where I am when I request a definition or translation. If they're concerned about usage, they only need to know how many times I actually used one or both of those features per day, per week, or month. They don't need to know instantly every single time a word is highlighted.
        edanm 6y ago
        > Analytics can be done less granularly and still benefit the user. Also, surely not every data point collected is used to benefit the user. How? For all we know, it isn't granular - it might be aggregated at the server level to hide specific user's actions. But they'd still need to be sending in the data from the device to the server.
        wongarsu 6y ago
        The device could keep a daily count of interesting actions, and sync that to analytics servers on a daily or weekly basis. That preserves 95% of legitimate use cases while leaking much less private data (like how my reading habits are distributed across the day)
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    The screen refresh rate on these devices is measured in seconds, so a few hundred millis of network latency is impossible to display.
    - fouric 6y ago
      This isn't universally true - Dan Luu's computer latency page[1] lists three Kindles, all below 900 ms of latency. And, since some devices have latency as low as 570 ms, it makes sense that they would use this optimization. [1] https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - shajznnckfke 6y ago
      That doesn’t seem right. Let’s consider the screen refresh to be like a subway station, where the train shows up every few seconds. We need the text we want to show to the user to be at the stop waiting when the train arrives. If we miss the train, we need to wait for the next train to get our text on the screen. The network latency delays when we show up to wait at the station. If the refresh rate is 5 seconds, and the network response time is 500ms, than eliminating the 500ms response time means we are 10% less likely to miss the train. On average, the time for the text to appear on the screen decreases by 500ms. All this assumes the refreshes happening on a static schedule. If the software can trigger the refresh, then it’s a lot simpler. The 500ms improvement in latency would apply equally to every engagement with the translate feature.
      - freeone3000 6y ago
        There's no static schedule. It's an e-ink display. Refreshes happen when software tells it to display something new and take several hundred millis per blank - and a screen can be up to three blanks (because if it doesn't go white-black-display, then some pixels get stuck "on" or "off" or "halfway").
- larrik 6y ago
  On the iOS app it all appears instantly-ish when I highlight, so I'm guessing it's just the same codebase.
- majormajor 6y ago
  There isn't a "translate button" - the selection of the word i the button for define/translate/wiki. You swipe between the three cards. I like this, as a user. I don't want MORE buttons to tap through when I'm trying to define or translate a word. Especially since the Kindle eink screen and UI is not the most responsive.
- jonahrd 6y ago
  This is literally my #1 used feature of my Kindle. I read texts in different languages to have a quick access to single-tap translations. If it took 2 taps, I would switch platforms.
halbritt 6y ago
> Might be worth noting that you can opt out of their data collection (on the e-reader, at a minimum) as well. Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Privacy or in the device management console in your account on amazon.com Good tip, I'm going to give this a whirl. Unfortunately, all the network calls add a significant amount of latency even if one didn't care about privacy.

Hitton 6y ago

I liked the article. If you are gonna update it, please consider also mentioning technical aspect. Frankly, Amazon snooping on users is to be expected, but short mention of app for which platform have you analysed using which tools would be welcome addition.

ballenf 6y ago
> Frankly, Amazon snooping on users is to be expected Snooping on users during e-commerce transactions, sure. But recording user's detailed interactions with every ebook? I hope that's a big surprise to your average Kindle user. It would be great to see a data request response and how much of this data is retained and for how long. It's clearly not anonymized at the request level. Very easy to see a future where just reading certain books or reading certain books too many times could flag you as dangerous or be used to support a mental incompetence hearing resulting in loss of rights.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  > But recording user's detailed interactions with every ebook? I hope that's a big surprise to your average Kindle user. I doubt it. Here are some features the Kindle phone app intentionally advertises to the user: - prediction of how long the book will take to complete, based on your reading rate - tracking of whether or not you read anything on any given day

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago

Can you provide the URLs so we can use pihole to block the requests?

boogies 6y ago
(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?
- _underfl0w_ 6y ago
  They both work similarly if you're using them to block outbound requests, but a Pi-Hole would intercept and block outbound requests for every device on the network where it's installed, whereas editing /etc/hosts would only block requests on a single device (unless that device is your router, I guess?)
- garblegarble 6y ago
  >(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts? It's good for cases exactly like this - devices where you don't have control over /etc/hosts (or where you have lots of them and don't want to keep the hosts files in sync). I use it for my Samsung TV to keep them from phoning home (but still letting me use apps) Edit: you can also set up a DoH endpoint and filter traffic while also allowing Encrypted SNI to work
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    > It's good for cases exactly like this - devices where you don't have control over /etc/hosts Is the pihole a DNS server or a firewall? Sibling comments suggest it's a DNS server, but that doesn't answer this need at all -- if you don't control /etc/hosts, you don't control the device. It can do its resolution however it wants. Most obviously, it can include the domain names you don't want it to reach in its own /etc/hosts file, which you just said you didn't control.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  That it works for all devices on your network. Even ones that don't have an etc/hosts :)