Kindle Free Time: No WiFi?

[Alan_Bernardo]

Hello!

I have the latest Oasis. I really would like some statistics of my reading.

Free Time looks like at least a way to do this.

The only problem is that when I try and set Free Time up it's wanting to connect to my WiFi. I can get through a couple of screens during setup, but then towards the end it keeps asking about WiFi and never lets me finish.

Is it possible to set this all up without WiFi? I've had this new Oasis since July of this year, and have connected ONCE to Amazon to register the device.

My general practice with Kindles is to never connect unless I absolutely have to.

So, can it be done?

Thanks!

[Quoth]

Stats on almost all ereaders involve theft of privacy. It could EASILY be done locally, but certainly for the Kindle or Kobo your activity is sent to Amazon or Kobo-Rakuten.

To me that's an unacceptable cost. That's why it wants the WiFi.

Exactly what value is it?

[jhowell]

I thought that Freetime was a subscription reading service like Kindle Unlimited but for kids.

[Alan_Bernardo]

[QUOTE=FrustratedReader;3925116]Stats on almost all ereaders involve theft of privacy. It could EASILY be done locally, but certainly for the Kindle or Kobo your activity is sent to Amazon or Kobo-Rakuten.

Huh?

[Junket]

Big data is an industry these days. If you let your Kindle go online, or most other app or devices these days, you can count on them tracking your purchases, and probably what you have on the device, your searches and location history for a start.

Targeted ads of course and there are many business models that profile users and aggregate data from diverse sites to identify who you are and build more complete demographics for marketing purposes. That seems to qualify as a privacy concern.




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edit: As to the OP setting up Free time. You might be able to set up Free Time by letting it connect to your home router. Just pull the ethernet cable or whatever the actual net connection is. And check that there aren't any other open wi-fi hotspots within range first.

It will probably let you complete the setup because it can make the wi-fi connection to your router - even though it can't reach the intended.destination (untested).

[Alan_Bernardo]

Originally Posted by Junket

Big data is an industry these days. If you let your Kindle go online, or most other app or devices these days, you can count on them tracking your purchases, and probably what you have on the device, your searches and location history for a start.

Targeted ads of course and there are many business models that profile users and aggregate data from diverse sites to identify who you are and build more complete demographics for marketing purposes. That seems to qualify as a privacy concern.




__

edit: As to the OP setting up Free time. You might be able to set up Free Time by letting it connect to your home router. Just pull the ethernet cable or whatever the actual net connection is. And check that there aren't any other open wi-fi hotspots within range first.

It will probably let you complete the setup because it can make the wi-fi connection to your router - even though it can't reach the intended.destination (untested).

Thanks! I might try this to see.

As I said, I'm not interested in Amazon knowing what books I have and what are my reading habits and such. Thus, I connect once to register my device, and never again.

[Junket]

Well you could connect just one time to register with no books on your Kindle. Then put your books back if you sideload them.

I wouldn't want to get ambushed with an unwanted firmware update. So I would either stay unregistered, use a fake registration or the unroutable method above.

[Paperbackstash]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I thought that Freetime was a subscription reading service like Kindle Unlimited but for kids.

It is a program for kids, so I'm confused too. It allows parents to better monitor and control their kid's reading, which while I understand from a parenting angle, strikes me as kind of funny not to connect to Wi-fi due to privacy reasons but the Freetime eliminates privacy, just within the household. Either way it doesn't have to be run with Wi-Fi on, but I can see a reason it would need it to be able to set itself up.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Stats on almost all ereaders involve theft of privacy. It could EASILY be done locally, but certainly for the Kindle or Kobo your activity is sent to Amazon or Kobo-Rakuten.

To me that's an unacceptable cost. That's why it wants the WiFi.

Exactly what value is it?

Once you register a Kobo, you do not ever have to turn on WiFi. You can have your stats without WiFi being on. I've had my H2o for just over 5 years and the WiFi has been on only once. That one time was to register.

[tomsem]

FreeTime is subscription service. Apparently it is also necessary to set up Child profiles in order to read the content. Those also need to be set up per-device, which requires internet connection as well. If I remember correctly (I have played with child profiles a bit) you cannot side load content that can be read with Child profile, which would defeat the ability of parents to control the content and send it to the device from Parent Dashboard. There are other restrictions and reading features that are not enabled as well (e.g. I think immersion reading does not work on Fire or iOS).

This is explicitly called out in the FreeTime for iOS Help article, not sure why it isn’t for Kindle.

Presumably it’s possible for parent accounts to read FT content using their account (how else could they review what it is that they were sending?), even if it is enabled for only 1 child account. But I am not curious enough to do a trial to find out.

[BookCat]

A little off-topic, but related.

Why do Amazon keep asking me to set up a child account? I don't have children, just cats. I buy lots of things from Amazon, mostly kindle books, stationery and arty things. But I just don't see why they think I have children. It's very annoying.

[Junket]

You must have looked at, or perchance thought about children on some website?
Need not have been an Amazon site.

Big data, targeted advertising, why privacy policies, cookies, etc matter.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by BookCat

A little off-topic, but related.

Why do Amazon keep asking me to set up a child account? I don't have children, just cats. I buy lots of things from Amazon, mostly kindle books, stationery and arty things. But I just don't see why they think I have children. It's very annoying.

But, it's a good question because they've never asked me to set up a child account.

[patrickt]

I feel much more under attack from government than from any company.

I enjoy my Kindle and have WiFi. I wonder how paranoid people use a cell phone?

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by patrickt

I feel much more under attack from government than from any company.

I enjoy my Kindle and have WiFi. I wonder how paranoid people use a cell phone?

I don't feel "under attack" from Amazon; just mildly irritated. As for the government, I can't help feeling they have better things to do.

Probably because of the stationery orders I make on Amazon (only for personal use) they have also suggested that I set up a business account. Seems like they can't decide whether I'm a mother surrounded by children, or own a business which uses masses of stationery items. I'm neither.

Junket's cartoon just about sums it up.