Privacy - Is it just me?

[TGS]

So, I noticed than no-one seems to really know what Amazon can or does do with their access to Kindles, so I asked them and this is what they said:

As described in the section you quoted, the logfile contains "data about your Device and its interaction with the Service (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device)". The logfile is used by our technical team to diagnose any possible problems your device may have.

Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights are also stored by us so you can use Whispernet to synchronize that data on all your Kindle devices and applications. An example of this would be if you wanted to synchronize the furthest page read of a book you were reading on your Kindle DX, on your Kindle for iPhone.

So, there you go!

[kindlekitten]

that's pretty clear to me. Ladies and Gentlemen it is now safe to remove your tinfoil!

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by TGS

What I don't accept is that those same people question my sanity and cast aspersions on my personality because I do have concerns.

Just to reiterate, I for one don't think you're nuts. I'm just trying to point out why I do not share your worries.

Originally Posted by TGS

Neither I, nor I suspect the pro-Kindle contributors to this thread, apparently actually know what Amazon can do, has done or will do with the data on Kindles.... What would be useful is information about Amazon's capabilities to interact with devices and evidence about how they have exercised any such capability.

Actually, we have a pretty good idea what Amazon and competitors like Apple can do and have done.

Both of these companies, and almost certainly B&N and any other ebook reader with 3g capabilities and syncing materials to the cloud, do the following.
- keep a record of what you've purchased
- track your browsing habits on their sites and online stores
- keep track of last page read, notes, and marks at time of sync
- record location data (as does your cell phone) for reliability purposes
- remotely wipe materials you have purchased through the official outlets (e.g. Apple can remotely kill iPhone / iPad apps at any time) in specific circumstances, e.g. an app is actually malware; if your iPhone gets stolen and you use .Me, you can remotely wipe it; a book turns out to violate copyrights)
- update firmware

Most of this has been exhumed via the Orwell "1984" issues and a few other enterprising individuals' research.

So far there is no indication whatsoever that they keep track of any materials you put on the Kindle outside of their official / Whispernet services. They certainly don't sync it for you.

Almost every online retailer is also data mining their sales, which they use for their own internal purposes. They also turn around and sell this data to the publishers. This applies to any product you purchase online, not just books. I'm pretty sure credit card companies, credit agencies, demographic research companies, web email services, search engines etc are all engaged in similar pursuits.

I concur there is a certain lack of transparency here. And if it bugs you, buy something else -- though keep in mind whoever you're buying books from is still up in your business. In practical terms, I do not see any significant additional loss of privacy as a result of Whispernet and similar syncing technologies.

Therefore, I'd say that duking it out with your significant other on Facebook is a far worse threat to your privacy than the Kindle.

[TGS]

But....just to be clear I have sent a follow-up to ask Amazon specifically whether, if I have, for example, work related PDFs on a Kindle, whether they can see them. If they come back and say they can't I might even buy one!

[TGS]

And this is what they said

Beyond the specific information quoted in our previous response for logfiles that we use when you contact us for troubleshooting, and the bookmarks, highlights, and notes that you can choose to sync to our servers for use across multiple devices, we are not able to see individual files you place on your Kindle.

Personal documents that you place on your Kindle remain anonymous. They are not something that we see or "see into," even in the event that we do need to pull specific logs for device troubleshooting. If they are of a compatible format such as PDF then you can transfer them directly to your Kindle via USB and bypass our conversion & delivery service as well.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by TGS

But....just to be clear I have sent a follow-up to ask Amazon specifically whether, if I have, for example, work related PDFs on a Kindle, whether they can see them. If they come back and say they can't I might even buy one!

You know you don't have to registered your device, my Kindle is not registered.

The drawback is there is no auto sync and no ability to email your documents to the kindle, but everything else works the same. I can use the TTS, bookmarks and clippings on all of these books (except for the PDF books). The 3G connectivity works... and not having to pay for 3G to read blogs and downloading books for free(FeedBooks/MobileRead) is quite nice!

I'm currently working on being able to download my books from home on the kindle.

I laugh every time I hear somebody criticize the Kindle being tied to one store. I'm reading on my kindle all the books I bought from different stores outside of the Kindle, originally for the SONY PRS-505. Since most of my books where PDF and MOBI, I'm actually saving more time using the Kindle since I don't have to convert the MOBI to LRF.

To date I've only bought two books on the Kindle store, one of them was Topaz the other was DRM-Free.



=X=

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by TGS

And this is what they said

can it get anymore clear? seriously. permission to remove tinfoil granted

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

can it get anymore clear? seriously. permission to remove tinfoil granted

Point taken...but - just to have the last word - what convinced me is asking Amazon what they actually do and can do. Polemic and ridiculing (on both sides of the "debate") didn't really serve to move the discussion on.

[kindlekitten]

*shrug* sometimes you just don't need to buy a whole lot of trouble. aslo understanding a digital handshake helps an awful lot

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

I'd be interested in hearing why you believe the term "theft" fits with regards to the mentioned case.

Because the legal definition fits, of course.

scveteran - Regardless, "such as" means that it's only an example and they are not limited in any way to those. There is no reason for such, they can and should include every intended use and of course there is a section allowing them to change the agreement - they'd simply have to update it for future uses.

TGS - Except... the agreement text is all that matters, they're not bound by anything else. Sorry.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by rabidkitten

d00d; this is THE paragraph that needs to be paid attention to;

Well yes, that's the paragraph which was already posted in this thread.

Originally Posted by Amazon

information related to the content on your Device and your use of it

ANY information. Not "Amazon-purchased" content, content. Again, this is not tinfoil hat time, that's your ball, it's "this is overly broad and should be altered". Sheesh.

they are NOT reading everyone's Kindles! basically what they can do is send a sort of digital handshake to items obtained from Amazon. other than that they have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE!!! what it is!!!!

Once again, what they can do in a technical sense is quite irrelevant to what I'm saying. (And can be changed anyway, if they so desire)

damn straight the Army would have had my ass by now if they thought they were being looked at

Actually, Ereaders with 3G are treated identically to cell phones ("you may not") in the UK, when it comes to classified documents. It's nothing really to do with Amazon ofc...

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Because the legal definition fits, of course.

I don't see how.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[DawnFalcon]

Under UK law, deleting copyrighted data belonging to someone else is theft, if the other party has a copy of the data - which they do (even if their copy was deleted at the same time). It's also unauthorised access under the computer misuse act and fraud, of course.

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by TGS

So, I noticed than no-one seems to really know what Amazon can or does do with their access to Kindles, so I asked them and this is what they said:

So, there you go!

Good job!

Here's an example that might demonstrate some of how it works in practice:


A couple of days ago I got locked out of a book that I’d legally purchased a few days before and only partly read. If I was inclined to conspiracy theories I might well have got all excited by this. However, I’m not. So I worked through and fixed it. This is how it went:

1: Book wouldn’t open when I click on it in the Kindle reader software on the notebook that it had been originally downloaded to.

2. Message comes up politely asking me to delete the book and download it again. No explanation of what the problem is, or instructions how to re-load.

3. Decide that this could be one of those “If all else fails read the instructions” moments, so I go to the site and read some of the bits I’d skipped before.

4. Wonder what I might have done to provoke the incident. Recall that I had also installed the Kindle software on a desktop PC to test out how it looked on a full sized screen, and that I’d copied a couple of books across using a thumb-drive (including the book in question). Hadn’t authorised the second PC at that time. Aha! That could be the difficulty.

5. Deleted the book from both PCs, authorised the 2nd one and then downloaded the book back onto the notebook that I've been reading it on. Problem fixed, and my Amazon/Kindle account now shows PC, iTouch and PC2 as my devices.

6. When I opened the same book on my iTouch, I didn't need to re-download the book, but it did then sync with the server and ask me if I want to move forward to the page I’d read up to on the other device. Accept the offer and continue reading from where I left off.

It all seems reasonable to me. They presumably have an obligation to the publishers not to allow downloads to unlimited devices from my account, so I needed to follow the right steps to authorise my gear. I could have found my place without the sync, but it’s quite a neat feature and certainly saved me a bit of time.

Cheers,

Chris

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

aslo understanding a digital handshake helps an awful lot

Yeah, but not understanding digital handshakes is not a personality defect, it's just something that someone hasn't had the need to understand up until that point.