This is terrible! As .epub and .mobi come more into the fore, reading analytics has sneakily been introduced without any discussion or privacy debate. On js-en

This is terrible! As .epub and .mobi come more into the fore, reading analytics has sneakily been introduced without any discussion or privacy debate. On js-enabled epub readers spying on one's readers could be as simple as setting up a web analytics backend. I know kindles also collect reader analytics[1]. We badly need free software like [2] to prevent this from happening under-the hood---any privacy-policy promises make by a vendor can't be trusted. Like Eben Moglen says, if they have the logs, there's nothing you can do. Monitoring one's learning progress could be useful for adaptive learning content presentation and positive reinforcement, e.g., "you learned 7 new things last week." Effort is a great metric! I previously wrote [3] about a proposed learning metric similar to the stats reported by ''uptime''. Also, like gyardley said below, knowing the reader's "knowledge state" can promote the "being in the flow because I'm learning new stuff at the edge of my knowledge horizon"-feeling, so it's definitely something readers would like. Surely all the customized-learning value provided by a centralized web application can be reproduced in js on the client side, no? [1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230487030... [2] https://github.com/readium/readium-js-viewer https://github.com/readium/readium-js-viewer [3] http://minireference.com/blog/exams-suck/ http://minireference.com/blog/exams-suck/