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Amazon Is Collecting Your Kindle Highlights & Notes
TechDirt catches Amazon playing fast and loose with data that consumers may think is private — namely, their highlights and notes entered into Kindle books. "Amazon will now remotely upload and store the user notes and highlights you take on your Kindle, which it then compiles into 'popular highlights.' I have no doubt that the feature provides some interesting data, but it's not clear that users realize their highlighting and notes are being stored and used that way. Amazon basically says there's no big privacy deal here, because the data is always aggregated. But it sounds like many users don't realize this is happening at all. Amazon says people can find out they added this feature by reading 'forum posts and help pages.' ... [This situation] once again highlights a key concern in that the 'features' of your 'book' can change over time. Your highlighting may have been yours in the past, but suddenly it becomes Amazon's with little notice."
Collecting and anonymizing highlights to form something like "most popular passages". Awesome. Collecting and "anonymizing" notes? Impossible and terribly invasive.
Guess which one is actually happening? Guess which one the title and summary suggests is happening?
1.) highlight 2.) upload in steal, er, I meant borrow...ahhhrr.. I mean stealth mode 3.) profit 4.) wow sharewholders
I can't wait to see who comes out of the woodwork to defend Amazon on this one, and what sort of faux reasoning they use to do it. I know Amazon doesn't have the fanboy base that Microsoft and Apple currently enjoy, but I think that's because they are, for the most part, "just a retailer" reselling goods they did not themselves design or produce. Most of the items they sell are things you happen to have bought from Amazon but could obtain elsewhere. The Kindle is quite the exception to that. It's a real Amazon product and service with all of the brand recognition that goes with that.
I'm wondering who is going to make excuses for Amazon and advocate that we view this as a desirable or at least benign practice. That's what happens whenever there is a story about alleged or proven malfeasance by Microsoft. It's what happens whenever there is a story about excessive vendor lock-in, general control-freak practices, or arbitrary and inconsistent actions (like which apps are accepted/rejected for its App Store) by Apple. So, who will it be? Who's going to try convincing us that this is a good and desirable practice, that it's in our interests as customers, that it's not a step in the wrong direction that has a long series of steps, or that there's something wrong with seriously questioning it?
Or better yet, who will point out a EULA clause or similar document stating, "we can arbitrarily modify this agreement without notice or ability to opt-out, at any time, to allow ourselves to engage in any practice" and conclude that this completely justifies everything beyond reproach, both legally and morally/ethically?
In the interests of non-discrimination, I hereby request that those of you with fanboy inclinations, who derive your identity in part or whole by feeling a personal connection to non-human entities that don't give a damn about you except that you spend money, who cheer their successes and mourn their losses, who add your free contributions to their already multi-million dollar marketing and PR budgets, who use ad-hominem and invective against anyone who dislikes "your team", speak up and be heard. There is no reason why Amazon should not be treated equally.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
As a (recently) former employee (new gig) of Lab126, the people who make the Kindle, I can assure you that only highlights are used in data collection, i.e. the selection from a start location to end location. When shown as popular highlights, they are just an underlining of text for those locations, as well as the number of users who have highlighted that selection. That is it, nothing more, nothing less.
No annotations are used that people have typed. Finally, the service is optional, with the ability to opt-in and opt-out on device. I'm pretty sure this has been stated in the kindle users guide, the legal menu item in settings, and on the website.