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> Whilst I agree with the sentiment, it does occur to me just how many kindles I see with ads. > Is there any data released on ads Vs no ads versions? Do they

> Whilst I agree with the sentiment, it does occur to me just how many kindles I see with ads. > Is there any data released on ads Vs no ads versions? Do they offer a tracking vs no tracking option too? The absence of adverts does not mean the absence of tracking.

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bcrosby95 6y ago
For the non-tablet Kindle, I'm not sure if the differentiation between tracking and ads makes a lot of sense. You (well, I at least) already use Amazon to buy the books that are on my Kindle. I guess they could track how fast I read them. But that seems trivial compared to already knowing what I'm reading.
derefr 6y ago
The tracking is somewhat inherent to the software — syncing what page you've read up to in a book between devices (a feature many people find crucial!), cannot really be divorced from having the raw data to create server-side metrics about people's reading habits. Even if you E2E-encrypt each user's data for cloud storage and have devices join a P2P-keybag, ala iMessage, consider the ad-tech department of your same company as if they were an external adversary for a moment. What would an external adversary do in that situation? Traffic analysis of updates to the cloud-side E2E-encrypted bundle. That alone would still be enough to create a useful advertising profile of the customer's reading habits, since your app is single-purpose — the only reason for that encrypted bundle to be updated, is if the user is flipping pages! And, together with the fact that your ad-tech department also knows what books the customer is reading (because your device can only be used to read books you sell, and thus books you have transaction records for selling them), this department can probably guess what the user is reading anyway. No matter how much your hardware-product department tries to hide it.
- simpss 6y ago
  ofcourse it can be divorced, keep the data client-side, as kindle does?
- zrm 6y ago
  > syncing what page you've read up to in a book (a feature many people find crucial!), cannot really be divorced from having the raw data to create server-side metrics about people's reading habits. Sure it can. You encrypt the data so the client can read it and the server can't. When you add a new device, you e.g. scan a QR code on your old device so that it can add the decryption key to the new device, and the server never knows what it is.
  - dcow 6y ago
    That scenario is addressed in the next few paragraphs.
    - zrm 6y ago
      The next few paragraphs were not originally in the post. And you obviously get less information from knowing the user has updated some encrypted data than having the specific page of the specific book. It is also not inherently necessary for the server to have even that information; it could be sent directly from one device to the other(s) or via an independent third party relay (e.g. Tor).
      - catlifeonmars 6y ago
        This. Distributed consensus is easy and cheap to implement when all participants can be trusted (as opposed to the Byzantine problem that I.e. blockchain tries to solve). It’s even easier if you’re ok with approximately eventual consistency with a reasonably high probability of convergence. Page state seems like it fits into this category
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  My position on data privacy is slightly different from other people on this site—unlike some, I don’t care all that much if Amazon knows my reading habits, but I do not want it to show ads, provide recommendations, or otherwise tailor my experience based on what it knows. I’m concerned that this “tailoring” puts me in a filter bubble, and locks me in to a narrow set of preferences for the rest of my life. In this regard, Amazon is among the worst of the big tech companies that I interact with. Google lets me turn off personalization—when I go to Youtube, I see an extremely generic set of recommended videos. But I can’t do it on Amazon. (I don’t use Facebook, not sure what can be switched off.)

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bcrosby95 6y ago

For the non-tablet Kindle, I'm not sure if the differentiation between tracking and ads makes a lot of sense. You (well, I at least) already use Amazon to buy the books that are on my Kindle. I guess they could track how fast I read them. But that seems trivial compared to already knowing what I'm reading.

derefr 6y ago

The tracking is somewhat inherent to the software — syncing what page you've read up to in a book between devices (a feature many people find crucial!), cannot really be divorced from having the raw data to create server-side metrics about people's reading habits. Even if you E2E-encrypt each user's data for cloud storage and have devices join a P2P-keybag, ala iMessage, consider the ad-tech department of your same company as if they were an external adversary for a moment. What would an external adversary do in that situation? Traffic analysis of updates to the cloud-side E2E-encrypted bundle. That alone would still be enough to create a useful advertising profile of the customer's reading habits, since your app is single-purpose — the only reason for that encrypted bundle to be updated, is if the user is flipping pages! And, together with the fact that your ad-tech department also knows what books the customer is reading (because your device can only be used to read books you sell, and thus books you have transaction records for selling them), this department can probably guess what the user is reading anyway. No matter how much your hardware-product department tries to hide it.

simpss 6y ago
ofcourse it can be divorced, keep the data client-side, as kindle does?
zrm 6y ago
> syncing what page you've read up to in a book (a feature many people find crucial!), cannot really be divorced from having the raw data to create server-side metrics about people's reading habits. Sure it can. You encrypt the data so the client can read it and the server can't. When you add a new device, you e.g. scan a QR code on your old device so that it can add the decryption key to the new device, and the server never knows what it is.
- dcow 6y ago
  That scenario is addressed in the next few paragraphs.
  - zrm 6y ago
    The next few paragraphs were not originally in the post. And you obviously get less information from knowing the user has updated some encrypted data than having the specific page of the specific book. It is also not inherently necessary for the server to have even that information; it could be sent directly from one device to the other(s) or via an independent third party relay (e.g. Tor).
    - catlifeonmars 6y ago
      This. Distributed consensus is easy and cheap to implement when all participants can be trusted (as opposed to the Byzantine problem that I.e. blockchain tries to solve). It’s even easier if you’re ok with approximately eventual consistency with a reasonably high probability of convergence. Page state seems like it fits into this category
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
My position on data privacy is slightly different from other people on this site—unlike some, I don’t care all that much if Amazon knows my reading habits, but I do not want it to show ads, provide recommendations, or otherwise tailor my experience based on what it knows. I’m concerned that this “tailoring” puts me in a filter bubble, and locks me in to a narrow set of preferences for the rest of my life. In this regard, Amazon is among the worst of the big tech companies that I interact with. Google lets me turn off personalization—when I go to Youtube, I see an extremely generic set of recommended videos. But I can’t do it on Amazon. (I don’t use Facebook, not sure what can be switched off.)