Kindle Monitors All Activity?

[DavidH13]

Is it true that an Amazon kindle will report back all activity you preform on it? What books you read, even if you upload them from your computer? How long you spend reading them? Where you highlight or bookmark?

Does anyone have any sources to confirm or deny this? I've heard that this is so but not found any supporting references.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by DavidH13

Is it true that an Amazon kindle will report back all activity you preform on it? What books you read, even if you upload them from your computer? How long you spend reading them? Where you highlight or bookmark?

Does anyone have any sources to confirm or deny this? I've heard that this is so but not found any supporting references.

No .... the Kindle does not "report" back all activity you perform on it. It does not have that capability. In fact, it has a little switch on the back ... right next to the on off switch, that lets you turn off Whispernet if you so desire.

And, who the hell would care if you took a long time reading a book or put a bookmark in it. Let me guess ... you heard this from someone named silencer?? No ... no .... of course not, he's a Sony man.

Well, whoever told you that was either (1) drunk or (2) dead drunk. And, in point of fact ... dead wrong. That's probably why you are having trouble finding any supporting references.

The next time you see whoever told you that ... do me a favor and whack them upside the head for lying to you.

[carld]

Have never even heard this as a rumor, where is this from? Seems highly unlikely. If this were the case there would have to be something in the EULA about it, I would expect.

[DavidH13]

Well that would be nice to hear. The first post in this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16370 seemed to suggest that sort of thing an awful lot but didn't really support much either.

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by DavidH13

Well that would be nice to hear. The first post in this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16370 seemed to suggest that sort of thing an awful lot but didn't really support much either.

Well look at it this way, that poster simply didn't know what they were talking about. That's the beginning and end of it. You had a person who (1) didn't own a Kindle, (2) had a bucket full of misinformation about it, and (3) chose to post it here.

Go figure. There seems to be a lot of that going around. Take it from me, no one at Amazon cares enough about you personally or me personally to monitor our reading habits. Further, you could use your Kindle to read all the books available here and never once connect it to Amazon ... you wouldn't even have to have it registered in order to read the books available here and lots of other places. All free and quite legal.

So, it would be a complete failure as a monitoring system .... aside from the fact that it would have to have a connection that went well beyond the capabilities of Whispernet (which is rather limited ... sad but true).

Now .... go in peace my child and enjoy your Kindle experience.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by DavidH13

Is it true that an Amazon kindle will report back all activity you preform on it? What books you read, even if you upload them from your computer? How long you spend reading them? Where you highlight or bookmark?

Does anyone have any sources to confirm or deny this? I've heard that this is so but not found any supporting references.

Heard where? It sounds like pure paranoia to me.

Amazon can certainly track what books you purchase from the Kindle store (and has to for things like royalty accounting), but I can't imagine why they or anyone else should be interested in what you read, for how long, and where you bookmark. Why on earth should anyone else care?
______
Dennis

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Heard where? It sounds like pure paranoia to me.

Amazon can certainly track what books you purchase from the Kindle store (and has to for things like royalty accounting), but I can't imagine why they or anyone else should be interested in what you read, for how long, and where you bookmark. Why on earth should anyone else care?
______
Dennis

He got it from a prior post by someone who didn't own one and didn't know much of anything about them. Probably another "constitutional scholar" (not referring to DavidH13) and I'm certain I'll get soundly thrashed for disputing the original idea ... because I'm just sure there's some loon out there who just thrives on spreading misinformation. No ... let me rephrase that .... I know for a fact there are loons out there who love to spread misinformation. Thank heavens for the ignore button.

DavidH13 .... really .... seriously .... no way, no how ... the Kindle cannot track anything except for the purchases you actually make from Amazon. They do keep a record of what you have purchased ... and they do that so that you can download your purchases more than once (if you need to). I like to think of it as a backup service.

They also keep track of how many Kindles are registered to a single account. I believe the limit is six Kindles on each account.

[DailyPlanet]

First off... I don't own a kindle, though a good friend does. I was looking at it Thursday and right in the help file on the device it says something to the effect of, If you accidentally delete content off your kindle, you can re download it and all of your bookmarks, notes, and where you left off reading will be downloaded as well. this would imply that they are uploading this from your kindle on a fairly regular basis. Most likely every time you connect your whispernet. I'm not saying that they monitor that data, but you never know. (does the eula say they don't?)

[Donnageddon]

Just in case, I am wrapping aluminum foil around my Kindle.

That way the lizard people who live in the bowels of the Earth cannot read the diary I upload every night.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by DavidH13

Is it true that an Amazon kindle will report back all activity you preform on it? What books you read, even if you upload them from your computer? How long you spend reading them? Where you highlight or bookmark?

Does anyone have any sources to confirm or deny this? I've heard that this is so but not found any supporting references.

It's true that it does log all the activity but I think it's a stretch to say that it reports back to Amazon. I haven't heard any evidence of this just that it would be theoretically possible.

Check the logs from this post --> https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16441

I would classify it as debug information available on most systems.

[igorsk]

The notes and bookmarks are uploaded to Amazon, but I think it's more for backup purposes than for tracking. Various log files also can be uploaded to Amazon, probably for debugging problems (similar Windows error reports). Though I still think it would be nice of Amazon if Kindle requested a confirmation from the user before sending the logs.
Here's an example of the "todo list" for my Kindle. Note the two "SND" items.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?> 
<response>
  <total_count>6</total_count> 
  <next_pull_time>20080124 16:17:30</next_pull_time> 
  <items>
    <item priority="0" type="CMND" action="SND" key="1199422466841:LOGFILE_MESSAGES_LONG" is_incremental="false" sequence="0">CustomerService</item> 
    <item priority="0" type="CMND" action="SND" key="1199422466841:611" is_incremental="false" sequence="0">CustomerService</item> 
    <item priority="0" type="EBSP" action="GET" key="B000WDV7TS" is_incremental="false" sequence="0">Chemoton Theory: Theory of Living Systems (Mathematical and Computational Chemistry)</item> 
    <item priority="5" type="NAMS" action="GET" key="Register" is_incremental="false" sequence="0" /> 
    <item priority="5" type="PSNL" action="GET" key="ThankYouLetter" is_incremental="false" sequence="0">Thank You Letter</item> 
  </items>
</response>

[KlondikeGeoff]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Well, whoever told you that was either (1) drunk or (2) dead drunk.

Or, (3), lives in Roswell, NM

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by KlondikeGeoff

Or, (3), lives in Roswell, NM

(4) usually wears a hat made out of tin foil, and
(5) constantly complains about the aliens who have anal probed him.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

(4) usually wears a hat made out of tin foil, and
(5) constantly complains about the aliens who have anal probed him.

And is very unhappy about missing the Alien Abduction Festival.
______
Dennis

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And is very unhappy about missing the Alien Abduction Festival.
______
Dennis

Oooo ... hey ... those anal probe thingies look kinda fun.