It's definitely shaping up to be the year of e-book readers: the Amazon Kindle is
flying off (virtual) shelves, and we'd expect the Barnes & Noble
Nook to start moving at a decent clip once the
kinks get worked out. But any device with an always-on 3G connection to a central server raises some privacy questions, especially when it can broadcast granular, specific data about what you're reading -- data that's subject to a wide spectrum of privacy laws and regulations when it comes to real books and libraries, but much less so in the digital realm. We'd say it's going to take a while for all the privacy implications of e-books to be dealt with by formal policy, but in the meantime the best solution is to be informed -- which is where this handy chart from our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation comes in. As you'd expect, the more reading you do online, the more you can be tracked -- and Google Books, the Kindle, and the Nook all log a ton of data that can be shared with law enforcement and various other third parties if required. Of course, we doubt the cops are too interested in your
Twilight reading habits, but honestly, we'd rather users weren't tracked at all. Check the full chart and more at the read link.
[Thanks, Tom]
posted December 27th 2009 4:04PM
How about if you have the Kindle's wireless off indefinitely? Will it suddenly turn on without your permission to send Amazon info? I'd like to see if they've tested this.
I just can't fathom the continued resentment of the Kindle. Let me understand: it's OK that Amazon knows when you buy a paper book from them, but it's a big problem if they notice you actually read an ebook that you buy from them? Some of these anti-Kindle arguments are so ridiculously contrived that I'm beginning to think they're astroturf.
@Kasmir
You fail to realize that not everyone buys and reads everything off Amazon. Any of us here on engadget would obtain various ebooks and documents, not necessarily "pirated," from many other sources other than Amazon.
That's like saying we should repeal the Fourth amendment since a lot of people shop on the internet and buy everything with a credit card anyway. Such generalities are not true, and even if they are, aren't close to having an open door into someone's home.
You are obfuscating the obvious point here.
@paul34
Yes, I later added an additional comment to that point, i.e. that folks are criticizing Kindle on this point because it allows Amazon to spy on non-Amazon content on the Kindle. Particularly no doubt those who'd like to install cracked Amazon ebooks on their Kindles. Those of us buying Kindles for the purpose of buying Amazon content don't have this problem.
It's ludicrous to expect the Kindle, of all eReaders, not to be highly connected to Amazon. Not a good box to use if you're uncomfortable with Amazon knowing what you put on it. So buy a eReader better suited for privacy or piracy, and have at it.
Unless all you do is pay for everything with CASH, and work under the table, your being tracked one way or another. That DVR Cable or Satellite Box you have, tracking what your watching and when. That Electronic Bridge toll Pass you have know where your going. Anything your buying at the store, your being tracked. Your ISP right now is tracking everywhere you go and when. Your on the Net, your being tracked. That cell phone you have. Yep, the Government knows right where you are and what your doing. Hey that Camera on it can see YOU and what your currently doing without you even knowing.
The Kindle? I don't care that OBAMA See's I'm Reading Right Wing Books!!! Last I checked, this was the FREE U.S. even though I know he doesn't like that, and he hates Constitution as it gets it is way of the Government take over that's currently happening. Even though Half the time he and the rest of them Ignore it anyway. Let them know what I'm reading. I could care less.
We ALL are being tracked for everything we do. How many Camera's do you walk by each day, 100+? GOOGLE would be more to worry about. Where you search, what's in your emails from using gmail, where your going with gmaps, etc. None of it is really FREE. The Kindle is the least of my worries. All the stuff I BUY from Amazon would be a bigger worry on Privacy. How about UPS and FedEx tracking all those Packages going to your house. Unless your a Illegal Alien that the Government just Ignores, your being watched!!!
@JBDragon It's people like you that make me hate people like you.
@JBDragon
HAHAH. Do you honestly believe the Constitution has seriously stood in the way of the massive overexpansion of the Federal government for almost the entire last century? I'm not sure more than 3-4 people in DC know what the Constitution even is, other than a huge "obstacle."
The Constitution is just a piece of paper. It has no power on it's own; the way it was designed was that the force and will of the people breathe life into the document. However, with such apathetic "citizens" in this country these days, they could burn the CONUS tomorrow and no one would lift a finger... except to change the channel to Desperate Housewives.
@JBDragon
"Last I checked, this was the FREE U.S."
So when was that when you checked? And where?
If you can't recall call the friendly people at amazon and they'll tell you I'm sure.
Obama hates the constitution ? I guess you must have been out of the country during the Bush presidency ... Bush and Cheney pretty much wiped there A**es with the constitution.
@alex98 Neither president has a very good track record. I voted for Obama myself--but I can't say I'm very happy about the fact that he has refused to release documents which would otherwise have become available via the FOIA, supported the Patriot Act, continued the practice of signing statements and escalated the war in Afghanistan.
@User Formerly Known as Dave not to turn this into a political debate but, I don't see how escalating a war against a country that harbored the terrorist who planned the attack that killed thousands of innocent Americans, for the purpose of ending a war that has been dragged on for years is such a bad thing, I know Bush may have confused you into thinking that Iraq was the real enemy but I can assure you that is not the case.
@alex98
So Alex, that is true, but let me ask you a question: does the blunders of the Bush era somehow give the current administration a blank check?
I see the whole "I can't believe you're criticizing O - look at how bad bush was!" That makes no sense.
Is Bush still President? Please, I'll wait for an answer. Oh wait, he isn't? Huh... so why are you still moaning about him? It's over, so who cares? What matters is the current administration. Get real, the elections are over, this administration is here, so it's time to keep up the eternal fight against the overexpansion of the central government.
@paul34 Although I am not thrilled with quite a few of Obama policies ... What Obama has done wrong is a mere drop in the bucket compared to Bush/Cheney administration (and the the complete failure of oversight in congress) which basically let NSA and other intelligence agencies run amok. I think Obama is slowly learning that even as president he doesn't have total control over these entities.
@alex98
How? Obama has only continued the negative policies of Bush et al. Nothing has "changed," except debt is bigger, the government is bigger, and nothing that actually needs to be changed has changed.
"Bush/Cheney administration (and the the complete failure of oversight in congress) which basically let NSA and other intelligence agencies run amok. I think Obama is slowly learning that even as president he doesn't have total control over these entities."
So... because of Bush/Cheney the NSA and other agencies have run amok, but it's ok that this is still the case with Obama because the "president doesn't have total control over these entities"? How can a President not have control, yet be blamed, yet have the next President do the same thing and be completely absolved of all wrongdoing? You can't - this argument is not coherent.
Speaking on behalf of the government, we would like to reassure everyone here that you simply aren't important enough for us to care about what you're doing.
We know your Facebook and Myspace friends make you feel like the center of something,
We know your Twitter followers make it seem like people care about your life.
We know your parents told you that you were special and unique.
You're Not.
I always find it amazing how americans, for who the concept of ownership is the basis of society seem to have a really ambiguous relationship with things they "own".
You put private property above everything else, you put it over equality, you put it over life ! You think it's ok to kill a man to protect what's yours, but you don't seem to be upset by the little control (or the lack thereof) you have over your property.
You buy a Phone but you can't install whatever you want on it, it's OK.
You buy an e-reader that spies on you, it's OK!
You buy a CD, but you cannot copy what's on it onto your computer without breaking the law, it's OK!
BTW : if you look closely, Sony and BFreader don't spie, ONLY THE AMERICAN products do.
You're owned by your gadget as much as you own them and it doesn't seem to bother you.
When I pay $450 dollars for a piece of plastic with some silicium I intend to be in control, fully.
But of course that's just me.
"Amazon can see what you're reading, log what you've searched for and bought, delete the book if they need to, AND share the information with law enforcement.
OR you could just get [sic] a book."
Now I'm beginning to understand. The specific concern with tracking of Amazon eBook usage not present with Amazon book purchases is about "law enforcement" being informed of pirated books on the Kindle. A not unreasonable concern for those of you opposed to digital rights.
Those of us who bought the Kindle as an alternative to buying physical books not only don't have that worry, we actually are concerned that rampant piracy will simply slow down the switchover to ePublishing.
There are several perfectly good off-line readers for DRM-free eBooks. Buy those instead of the Kindle if evading DRM is that important to you. For the rest of us who bought the Kindle to read books we buy from Amazon, this is no significant privacy issue specific to our Kindle usage.
@Atkins
It's not reasonable to expect privacy from Amazon on a Kindle.
@Atkins The primary function of the Kindle is to read ebooks that you purchase from Amazon. Since Amazon sells the book to you, there would be little privacy value in concealing from them that you actually read the books they sold you. Integration with Amazon is core feature of the Kindle.
The problem only arises when the user brings third party content onto the Kindle. While the Kindle supports some 3rd party formats, notably PDF, one can certainly note that Amazon's connectivity system allows then to see such content on a customer's Kindle. This might make one uncomfortable, but is obviously just a side effect of Kindle's designed-in connectivity with Amazon. It's not a plot.
The folks who *really* don't like this are the ones who would like to install DRM-free Amazon content on their Kindles. In that case, Amazon's ability to observe what they would consider piracy of content they have sub-licensed to the customer is a potential problem for everyone.
Rather than opining on the ethics of the participants, I would just observe that a Kindle is poorly designed for users who wish to install content they would like to keep private from Amazon. There are many alternative eReader devices on the market that don't have this problem. So rather than castigating Amazon for a privacy limitation inconsistent with its design, I suggest you consider buying an eReader not inherently connected to a publisher.
This is a bunch of blah blah blah about nothing. There's a lot of baseless speculation being thrown around as though it were the gospel truth.
@Carld
Ooh, you're right, that baseless speculation known as FACT.
@J2800
You really think an employer can just call up Amazon and find out what books you have on your Kindle? Really?
You'd be surprised how much of your data is collected and kept and tracked by web-apps and desktop software companies. I don't worry about it. Most of it is used to better their product, provide more targeted advertising within their platform or other similar uses. They could care less if Brother Winston can touch his toes or not, or is reading Goldstein's "THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM."
@Atkins Who knows if there is more than what I described. Maybe, maybe not. Where should this polemic blog reply target it's effort in fighting evil? I'd say with the authorities that say they have the right to demand it from the companies that make data storage and retrieval products. I could write about this for days but what good will it do here in this obscure reply to an esoteric blog post...
@daustin
Your reach seems to exceed your grasp.
You try to sound very educated and haughty then use "it's" instead of "its" exposing your literacy isn't as developed as you hope to convince us of.
But don't give up, if you keep it up and read a lot you will achieve what I expect is at this point more pretense than fact.
If you care, you need either need to stop doing illegal things or reading about how to do illegal things or you need to stop being paranoid.
@(Unverified)
"I don't need rights - I'm not a criminal!"
Oh the naive/stupid and the endless amusement they bring.
@(Unverified) Are you Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google?
“I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines -- including Google -- do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities,” - Eric Schmidt.
@Atkins They are not limiting our freedoms, they are simply saying that if you want that service, they can collect aggregate marketing data. They don't give a rat's ass what YOU do, they care about aggregate trends in data and how they can market to that. I have no problem with Gmail, Gdocs, Gcal, GVoice, etc. I know they retain a lot of data, that's just fine, as I am not a criminal.
There needs to be a whole set of 21st Century Digital Privacy Laws created with Net Neutrality at it's heart.
Starting with SHITEFACEBOOK
Facebook ""You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof."
If you buy a book from Amazon, whether you own a Kindle or get a paper book, Amazon has information about your reading habits. iTunes, Pandora, LastFM (and every other music site) has information about your music listening habits. If you still buy cds and you buy it online, there is a trail of your purchasing habits. Everywhere you go on the internet, you leave a trail with every piece of information you post. The problem is not the information that is moved around for business purposes. The problem is those that use gain access to and use the information for evil.
FFS, Engadget sure hates the Kindle, don't they? They hate it enough to continually mis-report and forget details when logging a negative story, such as the detail that the Kindle wireless connection is NOT always on, and can be turned off at will by the end user. It's not necessary to upgrade or sync books, either. If you don't want to use it, you don't have to use it. If you want to hide your local data first, then turn on wireless, then turn it off and resync your local data, you can do that, too.
The way Engadget continues to report it, the Kindle is this spyware-loaded, always-connected-to-Amazon, big-brother-is-watching-you device, and that's simply not the case.
Biased reporting is biased.
Oh, and the Sony line is complete bullsh*t. They say "no" to collecting info and other things, but then qualify by saying "but they will if you use the Sony eBook store."
Well, DUH. The same qualifier exists for the Kindle, and probably the Nook, too. If you use the online store, then YES, they have a record of what you purchased. If you don't use the online store, and choose to sync your own local content instead, then NO, they don't track your books.
It seems like the EFF and Engadget are pro-Sony enough to make it seem like it's completely different when Sony does the EXACT SAME THING as the other e-readers. You connect to the store and buy a book? They know it and remember it.
Now is when I regret not reading George Orwell's "1984". Maybe I can read it in the Kindle while Big Brother watches me do it.
Information from the ECU's in cars have been used by insurance companies to deny claims. Also by law enforcement to convict people of reckless driving. And by rental car companies to tack on "speeding" charges. And auto makers to void warranties. Some in car sat/nav systems are just witnesses against you.
I don't know why people are only pointing out the Kindle; Google looks just as guilty.