New to Kindle...privacy implications

[Connallmac]

Originally Posted by BigWaffles

Agreed, that will give them stats on what I've purchased. I'm more concerned about them looking into my device and seeing what I've highlighted, annotated or even reading notes I've taken (or deleting them). Whispernet is not the way I want to go. It's not about them knowing what I've purchased, it's about them tracking what I've done afterwards.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch, but there are a couple of threads around here that give me concern about using Whispernet. One thread is about Amazon.com deleting items from people's Kindles without notice (copyright issues), another interesting thread outlines the contents of the System Log file that the Kindle regularly sends to Amazon.com. The file includes some very interesting information (including the geographical location of the device). I don’t believe for a minute that Amazon.com would use this info in a negative way, but why make it available to tempt someone.

Just my warped perspective.


C.P.T.

I can certainly understand wanting to keep people out of your reading and note taking. I made sure that the first copy of the Communist Manifesto that I picked up was from college friend who couldn't sell his back to the book store for more than a bit of change, so I know where you're coming from. Since then I have had a rather big mouth, broadcasting my opinions across the web where anyone could read them. Since I'm sure I'm already on a certain number of watch lists I don't even bother any more.

And in light of Amazon's Whispernet erasures I have made sure that I back up my downloads where Amazon couldn't get at them that way!

[BigWaffles]

Originally Posted by Connallmac

...And in light of Amazon's Whispernet erasures I have made sure that I back up my downloads where Amazon couldn't get at them that way!

Agreed. Backup, backup, backup! And if in doubt, back it up again.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Coleman,

If you’re still reading this, here are a few threads on what Connallmac and I were discoursing upon.

Amazon.com deleting copies of Ayan Rand books due to copyright issues:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=book+removal

Amazon.com deleting copies of George Orwell books due to copyright issues:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=book+removal

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...te+animal+farm

Amazon.com paying one person for deleting their notes from a school project (1984 incident):

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58229

Some interesting info on what the Kindle actually sends to Amazon.com in its regular updates:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51371

Bottom line - Yes, Amazon.com can look into your reader via Whispernet and see what is on there. The regular updates the Kindle sends to Amazon.com includes lots of info about the content of your Kindle, including the geographic location where it is used (similar to cell phone I’m thinking). Is this a showstopper for the Kindle? It depends:

1. If you leave Whispernet on all the time then you will be subject to whatever Amazon.com decides to do.

2. If you only turn Whispernet on to download books & updates you probably won’t have problems (saves batteries too).

3. If you don’t use Whispernet at all you won’t have to worry (reduces the Kindle to a reader only).

Whatever option you use, be sure to back up your Kindle on a regular basis. That way if something does happen, you can restore it.

I’ve had my Kindle for 8 months now, the last 6 over here in the desert. I can’t imagine trying to lug the amount of books I’ve read on it with me in paper format. I know that from now on I’ll have some sort of e-reader to compliment my paper library. The trick is to evaluate the device you’re considering and find out if you’re comfortable with it. Cheers.


C.P.T.

[geneven]

If you buy the content from Amazon, it doesn't matter how you download it if Amazon is forced to pass on the information it chooses to keep on your spending. There is no guarantee that some future government won't be fascistically antiporn or repressively feminist or Puritanical or Islamic. Governments can be taken over by unreasonable people and Amazon stands ready to help them, whether it wants to or not. I'm not saying that Amazon should burn all of its records; I'm just saying that if a customer wants to expunge a certain record of purchase, Amazon should acceed to the customer's wish.

[kalsctk]

I am more worried about Amazon than the government. If Amazon is collecting the data, then it plans to exploit it sooner or later for commercial gain. I don't see Amazon as evil per se. Amazon is in the business of making money. If the data collected can be turned into revenue, it will use it for that purpose. I'm sure it knows what books you have looked at, in addition to what you actually purchased.
Google collects info too. It knows what you searched and if you have gmail, google has a copy of every email sent or received.
If the govt collected this data, the ACLU would go nuts. It is probably worse that a commercial entity has all this info about individuals.

[geneven]

I first joined the ACLU when I was like 12, so I know what you mean, but I'm not worried much about Amazon as a company. I can't imagine what it would do that would seriously affect me, except blab to prospective employers about my tastes in literature. And my tastes are generally quite high. And I'm not looking for a job... I think that the 1984 removal was just a weird glitch, unlikely to be repeated, not very significant, something the bloggers were happy about because it gave them something to grill Amazon over.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by geneven

I first joined the ACLU when I was like 12, so I know what you mean, but I'm not worried much about Amazon as a company. I can't imagine what it would do that would seriously affect me, except blab to prospective employers about my tastes in literature. And my tastes are generally quite high. And I'm not looking for a job... I think that the 1984 removal was just a weird glitch, unlikely to be repeated, not very significant, something the bloggers were happy about because it gave them something to grill Amazon over.

Nowadays any company will store any purchase made by credit card on their server, to tailor future ad campaigns, for statistical purposes, etc. So even if you buy pbooks somewhere, unless you pay cash and leave no trace, there will be a record for all eternity (since most Americans hardly ever use cash). And companies like Google know more about you than you know yourself.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by geneven

... I bought a book from Amazon that I'd just as soon not have listed forever on my account ... So, for the rest of my life, that book will be available to government snooping if, say, a court order is issued for that information.... Amazon keeps a permanent record of your purchases and will not ever protect your privacy to the extent of getting rid of the information it has on you, even if it doesn't need that information.

Originally Posted by orion2001

... It is not inconceivable that governments could issue warrants to retailers like Amazon for their records to help further such data-mining projects (who knows if they already have). If the US government could have warrantless wiretaps, I'm sure this isn't too far away from reality.

Who knows, if I bought a copy of Mein Kampf, I might somehow end up on a watch list for being a potential skinhead? ...

Good points. I have a habit of occasionally reading material that I personally disagree with, if only to make sure that I understand all sides of an argument. What would have been my defense if, in the 50s, I had been hauled before the House Committee for UnAmerican Activities because I had read The Communist Manifesto? (Well, if I had read it in those days, I could have told them I was not yet 10 years old.)

Originally Posted by The Hooded Claw

... I'd read several times that Apple does similar snooping about what MP3 and video you own if you use iTunes software to synch media files onto an iPhone or iPod, but have no specific knowledge if it is actually true.

I recall that Microsoft admitted years ago that they had spyware (they didn't call it that) in their system that kept tract of Word documents and other files. When it became public knowledge, their defense was that it was for analytic purposes only to help better meet consumer needs.

Originally Posted by Connallmac

... I just think that if you are purchasing ebooks from websites with credit/debit cards that you are kidding yourself if think you have any sort of privacy, regardless of whether or not you use Whispernet.

Or even when you borrow paper books from your local library.

There's not much we can do to avoid the glare of government should it decide to check into our reading habits short of paying cash for all reading material we can't borrow from friends or steal. And as far as our own words go, perhaps the best advice is that which my father gave me as a young boy when a particularly embarrassing letter surfaced that I had written: Never put anything in print that you'd be unwilling to share with the world.

Originally Posted by kalsctk

I am more worried about Amazon than the government ...

I'm far more worried about the government. Especially in the U.S. in these days when the cry of "homeland security" is all that's needed to run roughshod over constitutional protections guaranteed by the Forth Amendment.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Nowadays any company will store any purchase made by credit card on their server, to tailor future ad campaigns, for statistical purposes, etc. So even if you buy pbooks somewhere, unless you pay cash and leave no trace, there will be a record for all eternity (since most Americans hardly ever use cash). And companies like Google know more about you than you know yourself.

Exactly. And if you use a credit card to buy cigarettes or alcohol, how do you know Citibank and their pals won't share that information with your health insurance provider?

We live in interesting times.

[Connallmac]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Exactly. And if you use a credit card to buy cigarettes or alcohol, how do you know Citibank and their pals won't share that information with your health insurance provider?

We live in interesting times.

You raise a good point. I heard a report on NPR a while back where they had spoken to the folks at Canadian Tire had analyzed the purchases the folks with their credit cards made and cross referenced them against rates of default. According to Canadian Tire their customers who were least likely to default were those who purchased wild bird seed. Their customers that purchased chromed skull car accessories or who frequented a particular bar in Montreal were the most likely to default. I believe they used this information in deciding to raise or lower credit limits and/or interest rates.

[pshrynk]

Amazon does use your purchasing history to guide itself in making recommendations. Long ago, I gave up on any fantasy about privacy. If someone wants to know how many books of whatever type I buy, then they can get to that info. I would hope that no one would be so bored that they would be interested in me, though.

[geneven]

To really get to my concern, I don't really care if government knows EVERYTHING about me, as long as it is guaranteed not to persecute me because of what it knows, and it is welcome to persecute me if I am a terrorist or serial killer.

BUT, companies already feel free to persecute people who EVER smoke marijuana, even if it doesn't affect their job performance. On a related subject, the FBI once visited my landlady and told her I was a student activist. That made me feel insecure. (And yes, I can prove that, as I sent off for my FBI files, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act.)

What we really need is a return to a tolerant society, in which businesses and governments realize that it violates the basic rules of being an American to drug-test people and fire them based on something not job-related. (I was drug-tested, for example, when applying for a job as an editor. I had a friend who was drug-tested because she applied to pile boxes for a seller of cassette tapes.)

And as far as Amazon is concerned, I would have been happy if they would remove that particular book from my account as listed on my Kindle. They can keep it in their internal records for as long as they like. But of course that is too much trouble for Amazon...

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by geneven

BUT, companies already feel free to persecute people who EVER smoke marijuana, even if it doesn't affect their job performance. … What we really need is a return to a tolerant society, in which businesses and governments realize that it violates the basic rules of being an American to drug-test people and fire them based on something not job-related. …

I feel that J.S. Mill’s arguments on drunkenness should apply equally to users of recreational drugs.

From On Liberty by John Stuart Mill:

[T]he sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

… [T]he individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. Advice, instruction, persuasion, and avoidance by other people, if thought necessary by them for their own good, are the only measures by which society can justifiably express its dislike or disapprobation of his conduct.

… The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. But if he refrains from molesting others in what concerns them, and merely acts according to his own inclination and judgment in things which concern himself, the same reasons which show that opinion should be free, prove also that he should be allowed, without molestation, to carry his opinions into practice at his own cost.

… [W]hen a person disables himself, by conduct purely self-regarding, from the performance of some definite duty incumbent on him to the public, he is guilty of a social offence. No person ought to be punished simply for being drunk; but a soldier or a policeman should be punished for being drunk on duty. Whenever, in short, there is a definite damage, or a definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the public, the case is taken out of the province of liberty, and placed in that of morality or law.

… Drunkenness, for example, in ordinary cases, is not a fit subject for legislative interference; but I should deem it perfectly legitimate that a person, who had once been convicted of any act of violence to others under the influence of drink, should be placed under a special legal restriction, personal to himself; that if he were afterwards found drunk, he should be liable to a penalty, and that if when in that state he committed another offence, the punishment to which he would be liable for that other offence should be increased in severity. The making himself drunk, in a person whom drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others.

[Cactusgod]

This definitely dissuades me from buying a Kindle...

[David Derrico]

Just as an update, Amazon now does allow you to permanently delete books you've purchased from the "Manage My Kindle" page on Amazon.com. If you do that, you will NOT be able to re-download the book unless you re-purchase it, however.

Now, my guess is that Amazon still internally keeps track of any purchase you've ever made through them, eBook or otherwise (just like every other company out there). But this would remove the book from your Archive (which is handy if you never want to see it again, want to re-purchase an updated version, or don't want someone else sharing your account to see that title).

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Or even when you borrow paper books from your local library.

This depends on your local library. Mine deliberately chooses not to keep records of library loans, in accordance with the recommendations of the American Library Association, which has a rather strong position on patron privacy:

http://www.ala.org/template.cfm?sect...ontentid=13087

[wayner]

Given the recent cracking of Kindle DRM would Amazon be more likely to search for users that have books in unprotected format that should only be available with DRM, particularly if some books have only been digitally published in azw format and you have it on your kindle in unprotected formats. Could that be deemed to be possession of stolen property or aiding and abetting the violation of the DMCA?