Activity tracking

[KDawg]

Hello,

I joined team Kobo last fall with a Clara 2e and just received an email from Kobo listing the number of books I’ve read, the number of page turns, etc. This was surprising and disappointing. I know Amazon tracks these things and I’d hoped for less stalking with Kobo.

I did some searching and it looks like there used to be an option to turn off activity sharing. But I can’t find it on my Clara or in my account settings on the web pages. Has this option disappeared?

If so, my next option is to just log out og the account on my Kobo? My books are almost completely sideloaded without DRM.

Thanks,

Kay

[Aleron Ives]

You can edit the hosts file to prevent the analytics URLs from resolving, or you can use sideload mode and always keep Wi-Fi off, thus preventing any analytics from ever being transmitted. There is sadly no simple toggle in the options to disable tracking.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by KDawg

Hello,

I joined team Kobo last fall with a Clara 2e and just received an email from Kobo listing the number of books I’ve read, the number of page turns, etc. This was surprising and disappointing. I know Amazon tracks these things and I’d hoped for less stalking with Kobo.

I did some searching and it looks like there used to be an option to turn off activity sharing. But I can’t find it on my Clara or in my account settings on the web pages. Has this option disappeared?

If so, my next option is to just log out og the account on my Kobo? My books are almost completely sideloaded without DRM.

I get similar emails as part of having joined the Kobo Plus program. While they do list the hours read, the number of page turns and the number of books finished, the information sent does not includes other information on sideloaded books such as title or author. Books that you purchased from Kobo that were synced to your ereader will have the reading progress synced back to Kobo which allows Kobo to mark the books as read in My Books.

If you want to disable that information, you can go to the second page of Energy Saving and Privacy in the Settings and remove the check mark from Automatically share data about the features you use. This does have the warning that reading progress will still be sent for Kobo Plus books.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you want to disable that information, you can go to the second page of Energy Saving and Privacy in the Settings and remove the check mark from Automatically share data about the features you use. This does have the warning that reading progress will still be sent for Kobo Plus books.

I've not seen that on any Kobo for a long time. There is just a link to the website with general info.
Even if logged in same account as eReader the most is:

Email Updates
Get info on the latest eBooks, offers, and app updates.
( ) Yes please ... (*) No thanks

Kobo Research
I would like to be contacted about Kobo customer research initiatives such as interviews and surveys.
( ) Yes please ... (*) No thanks

[KDawg]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I get similar emails as part of having joined the Kobo Plus program. While they …

If you want to disable that information, you can go to the second page of Energy Saving and Privacy in the Settings and remove the check mark from Automatically share data about the features you use. This does have the warning that reading progress will still be sent for Kobo Plus books.

That option is gone in more recent firmwares. And I’m not in Kobo Plus so I think we’re all opted in now.

I did refuse all the tracking options at the website. I suspect I’m still being monitored but that may end the emails.

[Quoth]

It's illegal in the UK and EU and some other countries to have silent tracking or tracking without opt out. Technically might even be illegal unless you specifically opt in.

Of course if you are only buying ebooks it's possible to do it without ever turning on wifi.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by KDawg

That option is gone in more recent firmwares. And I’m not in Kobo Plus so I think we’re all opted in now.

I did refuse all the tracking options at the website. I suspect I’m still being monitored but that may end the emails.

Interesting. On three of the three Kobo ereaders I checked, the option was there. I've attached a screenshot from my Sage which shows the item and the Kobo Plus disclaimer. The Clara HD which is on my wife's account does not show the Kobo Plus disclaimer but does have the Automatically share data about the features you use checkbox.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Interesting. On three of the three Kobo ereaders I checked, the option was there. I've attached a screenshot from my Sage which shows the item and the Kobo Plus disclaimer. The Clara HD which is on my wife's account does not show the Kobo Plus disclaimer but does have the Automatically share data about the features you use checkbox.

I have no such option on my Kobos either. Perhaps it depends on the country you're in?

That said, I've never received any tracking email from Kobo. I sideload all my books, but my Sage has been online on a few occasions (mostly for using Dropbox).

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Interesting. On three of the three Kobo ereaders I checked, the option was there. I've attached a screenshot from my Sage which shows the item and the Kobo Plus disclaimer. The Clara HD which is on my wife's account does not show the Kobo Plus disclaimer but does have the Automatically share data about the features you use checkbox.

That's interesting. None of my current models have that option. Below "Help Improve Our App" is this statement: "To access your privacy settings, please visit: https://www.kobo.com/privacy."

Here's the weird part. Checking on my older Libra H20, the option with checkbox in your example does exist. All devices are running v4.34.20097 with wifi off.

[Alastair_S]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you want to disable that information, you can go to the second page of Energy Saving and Privacy in the Settings and remove the check mark from Automatically share data about the features you use. This does have the warning that reading progress will still be sent for Kobo Plus books.

If this option is not available on your Kobo you will need to edit Kobo eReader.conf and in the section headed [OneStoreServices] either delete or put a # at the beginning of the line kobo_privacyCentre_url=https://www.kobo.com/privacy. After rebooting your Kobo the above option should return.

Note that syncing or updating the firmware may see the line kobo_privacyCentre_url=https://www.kobo.com/privacy reinstated, just edit it out again.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by KDawg

That option is gone in more recent firmwares. And I’m not in Kobo Plus so I think we’re all opted in now..

It never went away on my Libra 2. Still there now, I just checked.

[Lys]

Originally Posted by KDawg

If so, my next option is to just log out og the account on my Kobo? My books are almost completely sideloaded without DRM.

I never looked closely at the "Reading Life" email I receive from Kobo, but I gave a look to the one I got this time around, and it listed:

582 pages turned
2 books read

If I check on Calibre, my actual "finished books" for March are 13, and 2 are the ones I purchased directly from Kobo Store (and which were synced with Kobo servers) The data seems to match with those books, too, page wise (Count page - based on ADE - on Calibre is 355: one book + one short story, and considering the font I use, 582 pages' turns seems plausible).

So it seems they are tracking only books directly linked to your Kobo account (that, or my collections issue broke so much my sync to Kobo servers that they stopped tracking me at all )

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Lys

So it seems they are tracking only books directly linked to your Kobo account (that, or my collections issue broke so much my sync to Kobo servers that they stopped tracking me at all )

Indeed. It’s all they’re really interested in. They allow for sideloading, but they don’t support syncing or activity from those ebooks.

[ownedbycats]

Yes, tracks only books from your Kobo account.

Hint: You can download books from the Kobo site and sideload them. (may require DeDRMing first)

[Lys]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Yes, tracks only books from your Kobo account.

Hint: You can download books from the Kobo site and sideload them. (may require DeDRMing first)

I'm not particularly bothered: if I buy ebooks from Kobo, they already know I bought them, after all
I'm not even particularly bothered by formatting (as long as it's acceptable to me, I try and fix the CSS only for the most egregious of cases), so I'll keep doing my download over wifi + sync and update metadata+collections with Calibre on the first connection routine

I was just curious to check against the original statement re their files being almost all sideloaded and without DRM and see if they somehow tracked the number of books and pages' turns for everything (like it happens on the device itself, where the total numbers for the Reading Stats includes also sideloaded content).