Info Amazon collects about books I didn't buy from them?

[rangepig]

I've seen a thread or two here (or in the developer forum) about Amazon receiving log files over 3G/WiFi from the Kindle that contains info about what we're reading, etc. I imagine this is how they keep our placeholders in sync.

But what about books I loaded on my Kindle that I didn't get from Amazon? I just downloaded a bunch of free books from the Baen publishing website in Mobi format. What information will Amazon collect when I read these books, or even just load them on my new Kindle 3 when it arrives? I imagine since I didn't get them from Amazon no placeholders will be synced in case I open the same file on my laptop, correct? Can I even open converted Mobi files in the Kindle desktop app? (I guess I'll go give this a try after I post this).

I'm just wondering how much Amazon cares if I use my Kindle to read things I got from other vendors, and the privacy advocate in me doesn't think it's any of their business in the first place.

--Jim

[jezebel]

Originally Posted by rangepig

Can I even open converted Mobi files in the Kindle desktop app?

I tried this yesterday and it worked fine.