Interesting Info about kindles

[Gandulf]

Don't know if anyone has shared this link.




https://nullsweep.com/kindle-collect...mount-of-data/

[hobnail]

Amazon already has my credit card on file and so probably has access to my bank information. Hopefully the only thing they don't have is my medical information (not that there's anything worrisome there). That other stuff I can't be bothered to worry about. Although I do keep wifi turned off, but that's to save battery use.

[JSWolf]

No wonder keeping WiFi on wears out the battery so quickly.

Does this data get stored if it cannot be sent because WiFi is off and then sent when WiFi is on?

[ilovejedd]

I mostly use the Kindle for reading Kindle Unlimited ebooks and the information collected seems appropriate so authors get paid.

That said, I do wonder if they also collect and store such data for unregistered Kindles reading books with invalid ASINs.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does this data get stored if it cannot be sent because WiFi is off and then sent when WiFi is on?

I expect so. Pretty sure that's what the .azw3f (azw3) and .mbs (mobi) files inside the sidecar folders are for.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I expect so. Pretty sure that's what the .azw3f (azw3) and .mbs (mobi) files inside the sidecar folders are for.

So your kindle is either slow because it's busy compressing and storing this information for later when wifi comes on, or the battery runs down more quickly.

[tomsem]

Amazon’s Privacy policies, in particular What Personal Information About Customers Does Amazon Collect?:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=201909010

‘Usage’ data such as that the article enumerates, is obviously in part needed to sync reading position across devices, a feature that most users expect. They may also be preparing to add features that would present more granular reading statistics (something I have a mild interest in).

It would be illuminating had the writer turned off sync feature to see what that changes about the data that gets sent to Amazon. And if possible, compare with behavior on Kindle apps for Fire/Android/iOS.

None of the information collected includes ‘personal identifiers’, none of which exist locally on the Kindle. I’m all in favor of collecting data to discover issues, and improve features and services, as long as it doesn’t compromise privacy (which this doesn’t appear to do).

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by hobnail

So you're kindle is either slow because it's busy compressing and storing this information for later when wifi comes on, or the battery runs down more quickly.

Why would it be slow? The data being stored is a few KB at most and the CPU cycles required for compressing is negligible. Not really enough to slow down page turns.

I don't see how these uploads would run down battery either unless you turn pages once every second or there's a bug somewhere in the chain that would cause it to try to upload the same data in a continuous loop. I know on 5.10.x, the PW4 got pretty aggressive trying to update firmware and would go into a continuous update-fail loop if it encounters the update.bin.tmp.partial blocking directory when wifi is on.

If one already uses WhisperSync for syncing bookmarks and reading position across devices, the extra data collected and uploaded shouldn't really have much of an impact.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Why would it be slow?

Whoosh. The sound of a joke/sarcasm going right over your head.