Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

nullsweep.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 393 posts

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#111

Post by jjcon »

hohohn wrote: post #69
Despoisj wrote: post #38

As a former Kindle developer, I can say that most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country. This allows the teams to focus on features that are actively used, and sometimes lead to discontinuing features that see little to no use. Hope that helps.

That's how every company rationalizes the mass collection of user data. "Oh lets collect many terabytes of every user-action in case we need to one day discontinue a feature". It's a book. You don't need to collect and track every fucking action I do to find out if your stupid highlighter is being used in Poland.

Whether you like it or not this collection does lead to better products - that is why you think every company does it because those that don’t usually die out. Understanding your users is vitally important.

Privacy LARPers are a tiny segment of the market, the average person doesn’t really care if their ‘usage of the highlighter function is tracked’

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#112

Post by gvjddbnvdrbv »

filesystem wrote: post #92
belorn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this practice ever get wide spread I would guess that the developers will limit airplane mode in someway in order to ensure that the device will call home at some point. But it is a pretty clever hack to get a hostile machine to not connect to the internet as airplane mode is (I assume) regulated behavior.

Even if the developers take the egregious step of nerfing airplane mode, you can still "opt out" by not giving the device credentials for your WiFi network.

Only a matter of time before devices come with 5G data connections...

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#113

Post by ethbro »

jjcon wrote: post #102
neiman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I would have known that by buying Kindle I end up working for Amazon, I indeed wouldn't have bought one. It's deception. Please put on the box a big warning, "THIS DEVICE COLLECTS YOUR DATA", similar to those on cigarette boxes.

It’s called the terms of service?

ToS are effectively useless for this purpose.

If the industry moved to a standardized disclosure form (e.g. something like the HUD-1 [1] in real estate sales), people would stop complaining about this.

[1] https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/1.PDF

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#115

Post by tweetle_beetle »

dusted wrote: post #44

This is only one reason why I absolutely love my Kobo Aura HD, it's never been connected to WiFi. Its storage device is a standard SD card which can be swapped for a larger one. Oh, and it's not giving money to Amazon which is always a big win for me. It also happens to be a super nice piece of kit, and it has my warmest recommendations.

That's a sensible approach, but sadly Kobo probably does something similar for those who are less savvy than you:

> We collect Personal Information when you use or otherwise interact with the Kobo Services. For example, we collect information about how you use the Kobo Services, such as pages you view, the rate at which you consume e-content (how often and for how long), genres, authors or subject matter you prefer and searches you make or share, the ebooks or audiobooks you have liked, comments you have left and also websites you have viewed through links in the comments. [1]

It's depressing that the market will not stomach the true cost of "dumb" hardware anymore, so it's becoming harder and harder to find. Everything that can be subsidised with hoovering up data, or pushing content, is. If this is the thin end of the wedge, I dread to think where we're heading.

I have an 2010 Kindle Keyboard and naively thought that we wouldn't end up here. The closer we got the less likely I am to "upgrade".

[1] https://authorize.kobo.com/terms/privacypolicy

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#116

Post by ryzvonusef »

vaylian wrote: post #97
BEEdwards wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why buy a kindle at all then? Any cheap budget tablet can read ebooks and stay off the internet.

eInk is a lot nicer for reading books than LCD screens. The downside is that eInk currently only supports black-and-white and turning pages is roughly only as fast as turning the page of a book. Also, battery life is counted in days (and sometimes weeks) and not in hours.

> The downside is that eInk currently only supports black-and-white

E-ink Kaleido with 4096 colors at 100 ppi are available commercially since past few weeks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqiCOheb1jo

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#117

Post by rerx »

Kaze404 wrote: post #110
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #21

I have quite often seen people here and on other tech forums assume that purchasing a Kindle means being locked into Amazon's ecosystem, giving up personal details, and having the risk that your books might be deleted. But you don't have to use the Kindle's internet connectivity: I have owned three generations of Kindle, and with each one I activated airplane mode the second I unboxed the device and I never turned ai…

Does the dictionary feature still work? It's the main reason I bought a Kindle.

The dictionaries are stored offline and will work fine in airplane mode. Wikipedia won't, though.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#118

Post by jjcon »

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #106
Despoisj wrote: post #38

As a former Kindle developer, I can say that most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country. This allows the teams to focus on features that are actively used, and sometimes lead to discontinuing features that see little to no use. Hope that helps.

There are some features in software I rarely use. But those times I do use them they are utterly essential. If I find such feature has been removed I am incensed. Usefulness is NOT the same as usage.

> Usefulness is NOT the same as usage.

Metrics can tell that story though so you’re arguing a straw man.

Example: If you see that 99% of users have never used a function ever - you have a pretty good idea that it needs to be reworked or removed. You may also see a function that is used by 80% of users once a month, that you may opt to keep.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#119

Post by neiman »

falcolas wrote: post #109

This statement - "None of these requests appear to be used for customer features like last read location." - bugs me, because it's fairly obviously false, and detracts from the real concerns. To sync a "last read page" across devices, you need to send a location back to Amazon. It's also appropriate to tie a location to a device, so you can pick the appropriate device to sync your position from. And, when you highlig…

Can't you do lost of those things by sending encrypted data to Amazon, and getting back the encrypted data from them? They act as a storage in most cases, not as a server, no?

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#120

Post by andrewmutz »

breakfastduck wrote: post #76
Despoisj wrote: post #38

As a former Kindle developer, I can say that most of what's mentioned in this article are metrics used to understand how the features are used (bookmarks, highlights, dictionnary, etc.), how much they are used, and in which country. This allows the teams to focus on features that are actively used, and sometimes lead to discontinuing features that see little to no use. Hope that helps.

As many people here have echoed - this boils down to the fact the data is being captured without an opt out. I don't doubt the developers are using it for 'morally acceptable' purposes, but I don't trust Amazon not to abuse that data later down the line! I really don't feel that anyone needs to know precisely what pages I have viewed in a specific book.

That data allows users to pick up where they left off as they change devices.

I rely on that regularly as I use both my phone and a Kindle device to read books.

Post reply on HN