6 ms·

Chris Espinosa: Fire

245 points by siglesias 15y ago

altuzar 15y ago
Opera Mini's been doing this for more than a year. And Opera Mini is one of the main browsers on Android phones. Works fine with Opera for iPad. Better than Safari imho.
- jerf 15y ago
  Opera doesn't have the other concerns raised here. They aren't vendors of anything else themselves, and have no particular reason to use their data to further other goals they may have. The question of whether this technically "works" is uninteresting. The answer is yes.
  - lukeschlather 15y ago
    I would worry about Opera precisely because they aren't vendors of anything else themselves. Amazon can run these servers just to increase the cachet of the tablets they sell. Opera needs to make sure that the servers they're running are bringing in income.
  - rapind 15y ago
    Opera inserts ads via this proxy. They bought AdMarvel last year. I'd say that's a good reason to check out your data. http://www.admarvel.com/OMAE.html http://www.admarvel.com/OMAE.html
    - jerf 15y ago
      Oh dear. I'm surprised someone hasn't had a major-league lawyers-involved hissy fit about this. Thanks for the info!
- jarek 15y ago
  Opera Mini's been doing this for more than five years. The J2ME Mini has been available worldwide since January 24, 2006.
dabeeeenster 15y ago
Sensationalist.
- bprater 15y ago
  Is it? Sounds like a strong privacy argument to me. Especially if Silk doesn't offer an opt-out. There will be wayyy too much useful data in Amazon's lap for them to simply ignore it.
  - ErrantX 15y ago
    Apparently it does offer an opt out. Which is nice.
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    Especially if Silk doesn't offer an opt-out Which it does. "Fortunately Amazon will support an "off-cloud" mode for Silk. This lets users opt-out of the benefits of using EC2 while retaining the traditional privacy benefits of connecting directly to remote web sites." - http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/28/amazon-kindle-fires-silk-browser-sounds-privacy-alarm-bells/ http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/28/amazon-kindle-fir...
  - joezydeco 15y ago
    Is there a point where even "anonymized" data can be mined and recombined into something that is used to personalize and sell things better?
    - angelbob 15y ago
      Absolutely. Even if you only know what people are doing/buying in aggregate, that's still very valuable. And you can still correlate between various anonymized streams of data if you know how they correlate -- i.e. 32-year-old male manga fans are more likely to buy Pokemon and Pocky than average. Amazon already gets (and uses, vigorously) a lot of this kind of data from Amazon.com, but I'll bet they're salivating at the idea of getting to cross-compare against all the non-Amazon.com data on the same topics. If they're not, they should be.
masnick 15y ago
I doubt end users will care as long as the TOS aren't absurd (e.g. Amazon has the right to sell your non-anonymized data probably wouldn't fly). People _will_ care that their Silk browser is screaming fast, though.
naner 15y ago
Speaking of caching, are browsers already doing all the caching that is practical on modern machines? I vaguely remember years ago downloading a special program that sped up the internet by performing more aggressive caching than the browser was capable of (basically it was just a caching proxy). Everything was noticeably quicker. Though these days things probably feel slower because every website is loaded down with 3rd party JS from 100 different sites...
- eli 15y ago
  Just a guess, but that program might have had more to do with adjusting Windows' TCP/IP settings, which used some very antiquated defaults until rather recently.
madiator 15y ago
Think about this: So Amazon can learn about people's browsing habits and can infer a user's interests. Now, based on this, it can put ads in the screensaver (say with "$20 off on the Kindle fire if you let us do this"). An extreme case would be to modify the webpage with their own ads (hopefully will not happen and is unethical). But nevertheless good move, Amazon.
- drats 15y ago
  I think their IPs will start getting blocked if they substitute ads. However, the Kindle ads would work wonders. Just inferring the main categories in which the user makes purchases from their Amazon history and showing the top five best sellers in those categories would be sufficient, but having the web history is huge. That said, the potential abuses are also massive if they start getting hit by warrants/national security letters.
  - madiator 15y ago
    Or they could start a SilkAds service like AdWords/AdSense so content providers can display ads using Amazon.
madiator 15y ago
What about pageviews: If Amazon stores one copy of NYTimes and serves it to 1000 users, will NYTimes record it as a single hit?
- ConstantineXVI 15y ago
  Theoretically, Amazon could "replay" the 1000 hits back to the NYT in the background while the users are getting served the cached page. In addition, it appears that JavaScript still runs on the client (though compiled down to bytecode before reaching the device), so any JS-based analytics would still get fired off.
  - xtacy 15y ago
    And Amazon could also do filter out any malware distributing websites. Would it be wrong to call the Fire some sort of thin client? (just for the browser)
jcampbell1 15y ago
> This is the first shot in the new war for replacing the Internet with a privatized merchant data-aggregation network. Doesn't this already exist? Google has the information from toolbar data. DoubleClick has already classified everyone on the internet based on their interests based on what sites they visit. How much better are Amazon's product recommendations going to get based on this new source of data? My guess is some, but not much. A cheap tablet with a fast browser will bring new people into the Amazon ecosystem, and that will be worth far more than the clickstream data.
- ChuckMcM 15y ago
  Actually I was going to say the first shot was iCloud from Apple, they just didn't extend it to browsing.
- nupark2 15y ago
  Doesn't this already exist? Google has the information from toolbar data. ... and if instead, Google built reporting of visited sites and all their contents, cookies, and your personal information into Chrome?
  - eli 15y ago
    I don't know why this keeps coming up. It would violate their privacy policy to do anything like that, they've said they're not going to do anything like that, and if they did do something like that it would be easily detected and there would be a massive, unrecoverable backlash. If you want to play conspiracy theory, why don't you ponder what percentage of sites have Google Analytics or +1 javascript installed?
    - cturner 15y ago
      I think you've misread the parent. nupark2 is distinguishing between what Amazon is planning and what Google do. jcampbell is saying "doesn't this already exist" and nupark2 is saying no.
    - danssig 15y ago
dvdhsu 15y ago
What is stopping you from installing another browser on the Fire? Wouldn't that entirely bypass Silk?
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  Silk has an option to turn off the cloud proxy browsing mode.
huhtenberg 15y ago
One could argue that Opera Mini has been doing the very same thing for a while now, and it did not appear to cause any major uproar between the privacy proponents. This might be a typical "Ah, that's Opera, cool stuff, but who cares" attitude, but it might also indicate a profound shift in surfer's attitude towards their privacy. You press them long enough and they will grow to accept that intrusive Web surfing is a damn norm. That's the shift I am personally really afraid of, but by the looks of it and as upsetting as it sounds, it is inevitable.
- falcolas 15y ago
  I believe Opera is not generating any uproar simply because they are acting as a "dumb pipe" in the truest sense - they're not trying to mess with the stream of data that they're entrusted (even though they're in a best possible position to do so), and so we trust them with the stream of data. I think it would be different if they were intruding on the stream, and I imagine the backlash against Amazon if they do will be major.
  - huhtenberg 15y ago
    But the thing is that Opera now sits on a trove of highly valuable information, and I can't imagine them not doing anything about it. As benign and non-evil as they are, they must feel pressure - be it internal, external or both - to capitalize on this "asset". Do you trust them enough to keep resisting this pressure, which is only guaranteed to rise?
    - rhizome 15y ago
      All we know is that they've resisted it so far, right? I know the bar for ethics here is pretty low, but give credit where due.
      - kaffiene 15y ago
        I think that's very important. We have to trust some companies to get by in the world so its very important being able to distinguish between those you trust and those you don't. For me, I killed my facebook account while leaving Google+ running. I know that Google is using its data on me to serve up ads to me, but I feel they're pretty up-front about this, unlike facebook. I think its important to be able to judge which companies are worth trusting and giving credit to those (like Opera) which haven't yet given anyone reason to doubt them.
powertower 15y ago
ISPs have been doing this for ages, maybe not as fine grained as what Amazon plans, but all traffic in general is data-mined and sold.
- larrik 15y ago
  Is this true? If it is, why don't the RIAA and MPAA just buy the information they seem so desperate to get so they can sue you with it?
patrickaljord 15y ago
Android Apache's license allows just that. Google was aware that was going to happen. There have already been android phones released that were locked on Bing as the search engine and many other devices with no android market. So nothing unexpected here for google.
gregable 15y ago
Isn't this the same data stream that Microsoft is grabbing via most IE users? It's a big privacy violation, but not a major advantage for amazon.
rshm 15y ago
Apart from the technology provider, amazon is a giant e-commerce outlet. The implications - Amazon knowing what sells, can be misused to foster its growth on e-commerce. And such things are not even related to user's privacy at all. User might benefit for a short while, by getting their products under the same roof. But in long run it only serves to create e-commerce monopoly and drive mom-pop/small businesses out of the market, in turn eliminating the competition.

245 points by siglesias 15y ago

Opera Mini's been doing this for more than a year. And Opera Mini is one of the main browsers on Android phones. Works fine with Opera for iPad. Better than Safari imho.

jerf 15y ago
Opera doesn't have the other concerns raised here. They aren't vendors of anything else themselves, and have no particular reason to use their data to further other goals they may have. The question of whether this technically "works" is uninteresting. The answer is yes.
- lukeschlather 15y ago
  I would worry about Opera precisely because they aren't vendors of anything else themselves. Amazon can run these servers just to increase the cachet of the tablets they sell. Opera needs to make sure that the servers they're running are bringing in income.
- rapind 15y ago
  Opera inserts ads via this proxy. They bought AdMarvel last year. I'd say that's a good reason to check out your data. http://www.admarvel.com/OMAE.html http://www.admarvel.com/OMAE.html
  - jerf 15y ago
    Oh dear. I'm surprised someone hasn't had a major-league lawyers-involved hissy fit about this. Thanks for the info!
jarek 15y ago
Opera Mini's been doing this for more than five years. The J2ME Mini has been available worldwide since January 24, 2006.

dabeeeenster 15y ago

Sensationalist.

bprater 15y ago
Is it? Sounds like a strong privacy argument to me. Especially if Silk doesn't offer an opt-out. There will be wayyy too much useful data in Amazon's lap for them to simply ignore it.
- ErrantX 15y ago
  Apparently it does offer an opt out. Which is nice.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  Especially if Silk doesn't offer an opt-out Which it does. "Fortunately Amazon will support an "off-cloud" mode for Silk. This lets users opt-out of the benefits of using EC2 while retaining the traditional privacy benefits of connecting directly to remote web sites." - http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/28/amazon-kindle-fires-silk-browser-sounds-privacy-alarm-bells/ http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/09/28/amazon-kindle-fir...
- joezydeco 15y ago
  Is there a point where even "anonymized" data can be mined and recombined into something that is used to personalize and sell things better?
  - angelbob 15y ago
    Absolutely. Even if you only know what people are doing/buying in aggregate, that's still very valuable. And you can still correlate between various anonymized streams of data if you know how they correlate -- i.e. 32-year-old male manga fans are more likely to buy Pokemon and Pocky than average. Amazon already gets (and uses, vigorously) a lot of this kind of data from Amazon.com, but I'll bet they're salivating at the idea of getting to cross-compare against all the non-Amazon.com data on the same topics. If they're not, they should be.

masnick 15y ago

I doubt end users will care as long as the TOS aren't absurd (e.g. Amazon has the right to sell your non-anonymized data probably wouldn't fly). People _will_ care that their Silk browser is screaming fast, though.

naner 15y ago

Speaking of caching, are browsers already doing all the caching that is practical on modern machines? I vaguely remember years ago downloading a special program that sped up the internet by performing more aggressive caching than the browser was capable of (basically it was just a caching proxy). Everything was noticeably quicker. Though these days things probably feel slower because every website is loaded down with 3rd party JS from 100 different sites...

eli 15y ago
Just a guess, but that program might have had more to do with adjusting Windows' TCP/IP settings, which used some very antiquated defaults until rather recently.

madiator 15y ago

Think about this: So Amazon can learn about people's browsing habits and can infer a user's interests. Now, based on this, it can put ads in the screensaver (say with "$20 off on the Kindle fire if you let us do this"). An extreme case would be to modify the webpage with their own ads (hopefully will not happen and is unethical). But nevertheless good move, Amazon.

drats 15y ago
I think their IPs will start getting blocked if they substitute ads. However, the Kindle ads would work wonders. Just inferring the main categories in which the user makes purchases from their Amazon history and showing the top five best sellers in those categories would be sufficient, but having the web history is huge. That said, the potential abuses are also massive if they start getting hit by warrants/national security letters.
- madiator 15y ago
  Or they could start a SilkAds service like AdWords/AdSense so content providers can display ads using Amazon.

madiator 15y ago

What about pageviews: If Amazon stores one copy of NYTimes and serves it to 1000 users, will NYTimes record it as a single hit?

ConstantineXVI 15y ago
Theoretically, Amazon could "replay" the 1000 hits back to the NYT in the background while the users are getting served the cached page. In addition, it appears that JavaScript still runs on the client (though compiled down to bytecode before reaching the device), so any JS-based analytics would still get fired off.
- xtacy 15y ago
  And Amazon could also do filter out any malware distributing websites. Would it be wrong to call the Fire some sort of thin client? (just for the browser)

jcampbell1 15y ago

> This is the first shot in the new war for replacing the Internet with a privatized merchant data-aggregation network. Doesn't this already exist? Google has the information from toolbar data. DoubleClick has already classified everyone on the internet based on their interests based on what sites they visit. How much better are Amazon's product recommendations going to get based on this new source of data? My guess is some, but not much. A cheap tablet with a fast browser will bring new people into the Amazon ecosystem, and that will be worth far more than the clickstream data.

ChuckMcM 15y ago
Actually I was going to say the first shot was iCloud from Apple, they just didn't extend it to browsing.
nupark2 15y ago
Doesn't this already exist? Google has the information from toolbar data. ... and if instead, Google built reporting of visited sites and all their contents, cookies, and your personal information into Chrome?
- eli 15y ago
  I don't know why this keeps coming up. It would violate their privacy policy to do anything like that, they've said they're not going to do anything like that, and if they did do something like that it would be easily detected and there would be a massive, unrecoverable backlash. If you want to play conspiracy theory, why don't you ponder what percentage of sites have Google Analytics or +1 javascript installed?
  - cturner 15y ago
    I think you've misread the parent. nupark2 is distinguishing between what Amazon is planning and what Google do. jcampbell is saying "doesn't this already exist" and nupark2 is saying no.
  - danssig 15y ago

dvdhsu 15y ago

What is stopping you from installing another browser on the Fire? Wouldn't that entirely bypass Silk?

patrickaljord 15y ago
Silk has an option to turn off the cloud proxy browsing mode.

huhtenberg 15y ago

One could argue that Opera Mini has been doing the very same thing for a while now, and it did not appear to cause any major uproar between the privacy proponents. This might be a typical "Ah, that's Opera, cool stuff, but who cares" attitude, but it might also indicate a profound shift in surfer's attitude towards their privacy. You press them long enough and they will grow to accept that intrusive Web surfing is a damn norm. That's the shift I am personally really afraid of, but by the looks of it and as upsetting as it sounds, it is inevitable.

falcolas 15y ago
I believe Opera is not generating any uproar simply because they are acting as a "dumb pipe" in the truest sense - they're not trying to mess with the stream of data that they're entrusted (even though they're in a best possible position to do so), and so we trust them with the stream of data. I think it would be different if they were intruding on the stream, and I imagine the backlash against Amazon if they do will be major.
- huhtenberg 15y ago
  But the thing is that Opera now sits on a trove of highly valuable information, and I can't imagine them not doing anything about it. As benign and non-evil as they are, they must feel pressure - be it internal, external or both - to capitalize on this "asset". Do you trust them enough to keep resisting this pressure, which is only guaranteed to rise?
  - rhizome 15y ago
    All we know is that they've resisted it so far, right? I know the bar for ethics here is pretty low, but give credit where due.
    - kaffiene 15y ago
      I think that's very important. We have to trust some companies to get by in the world so its very important being able to distinguish between those you trust and those you don't. For me, I killed my facebook account while leaving Google+ running. I know that Google is using its data on me to serve up ads to me, but I feel they're pretty up-front about this, unlike facebook. I think its important to be able to judge which companies are worth trusting and giving credit to those (like Opera) which haven't yet given anyone reason to doubt them.

powertower 15y ago

ISPs have been doing this for ages, maybe not as fine grained as what Amazon plans, but all traffic in general is data-mined and sold.

larrik 15y ago
Is this true? If it is, why don't the RIAA and MPAA just buy the information they seem so desperate to get so they can sue you with it?

patrickaljord 15y ago

Android Apache's license allows just that. Google was aware that was going to happen. There have already been android phones released that were locked on Bing as the search engine and many other devices with no android market. So nothing unexpected here for google.

gregable 15y ago

Isn't this the same data stream that Microsoft is grabbing via most IE users? It's a big privacy violation, but not a major advantage for amazon.

rshm 15y ago

Apart from the technology provider, amazon is a giant e-commerce outlet. The implications - Amazon knowing what sells, can be misused to foster its growth on e-commerce. And such things are not even related to user's privacy at all. User might benefit for a short while, by getting their products under the same roof. But in long run it only serves to create e-commerce monopoly and drive mom-pop/small businesses out of the market, in turn eliminating the competition.