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Why is it acceptable for Amazon to be able to record every time someone turns a page?
by hdevalence 11y ago
Why is it acceptable for Amazon to be able to record every time someone turns a page?
- timdorr 11y agoThis only applies to Kindle Unlimited books, aka they're Netflix-like service that loans you books as long as your subscription is active. It's about as acceptable that Netflix knows exactly what minutes and seconds of any streaming videos I've watched.
- waterlesscloud 11y agoKindle has always synched your last "read to" spot across devices. It's a feature.
- dcre 11y agoAcceptable in what sense? Users know about it and accept it, therefore it must be acceptable. I don't think you can opt out, though.
- jimrandomh 11y agoWhen you read part of an ebook, set it aside, and come back, you want it to remember what page you were on. You also want this to work if you switch between devices. It is technically difficult to make this feature work without letting Amazon also know what page you're on.
- icebraining 11y agoIt is technically dift to make this feature work without letting Amazon also know what page you're on. Not since encryption has been invented. Firefox syncs currently open tabs and other stuff without letting Mozilla know about them.
- TheDong 11y agoEncryption is a waste of complexity and battery life here. Firefox encrypts your history and open tabs because those are sensitive. A page number in a book is not.
- icebraining 11y agoBut they don't only sync page numbers, but also written annotations (and bookmarks and highlights). And regarding battery life, even a CPU much weaker than the one used by the original Kindle can encrypt at 1MB/s, so encrypting a couple of KB is absolutely negligible.
- dlitz 11y agoA detailed history of what pages of what books I'm reading and when is certainly as sensitive as browser history, if not moreso.
- TheDong 11y agoEncryption is a waste of complexity and battery life here. Firefox encrypts your history and open tabs because those are sensitive. A page number in a book is not.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- iLoch 11y agoIn terms of data collection, I think this one is actually pretty harmless.
- bby 11y agoI actually have no issue with this.
- freyr 11y agoBecause it's the device they're offering, the version of the content they're offering, and the service they're offering. If you disagree with this practice, you're free to not accept the offer. It's as simple as that.
- icebraining 11y agoJust because people are free to refuse it doesn't mean we must find it acceptable and refrain from criticizing it.
- freyr 11y agoOf course you're free to criticize it, but declaring it "acceptable" or "unacceptable" without justification isn't particularly helpful.
- task_queue 11y agoIf you disagree with this practice, you're free to choose from one the competitors which engage in the same collection activities.
- gdy 11y agoIt doesn't make it acceptable.
- freyr 11y agoNo, it is acceptable. See? Random people declaring something acceptable or unacceptable without justification isn't particularly helpful. If you want to explain why you find it unacceptable, that might actually be interesting to someone. I don't mind Amazon knowing how far into a book I've read, if it allows them to better compensate the authors of quality books and helps them penalize the authors gaming the system. However, if you want to keep your reading habits private, I can sympathize with that. An opt-in/opt-out option might be a good compromise in this case.
- gdy 11y ago
- facepalm 11y agoI wish they would at least share that data with me. For example I always read before going to sleep, so with that data I could track my sleep habits.
- IneffablePigeon 11y agoAgreed. I'm much, much more amenable to data collection when I can use that data myself however I want.
- Twirrim 11y agoThey already know what books you're reading (because most of them have been purchased through amazon), and you're worried about them knowing what page you're on?
- dTal 11y agoI am worried that an action as unimportant, intimate and personal as the turn of a page in a book, which previously required no expenditure of mental energy whatever, suddenly becomes an action with potentially global consequences. A passive action - reading something - becomes an active action (causing money to be sent to the author). I feel this is a fundamental change in the nature of the interaction.
- Bluestrike2 11y agoThey also record the amount of time spent on each page and use that to predict the total reading time remaining. Privacy issues aside, there are a number of really amazing tools Amazon could provide authors/editors/publishers if they were willing to share this data with them. The ability to pinpoint where readers either skip ahead or pick up the pace would offer editors a remarkable glimpse inside how readers approach a given story. It'd be even more useful if those insights could then be applied to help with editing unpublished manuscripts in the future. Compared to the present, where editors are forced to make what are often judgment calls on plotting, having hard data to look at would be a remarkable benefit.