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Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

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Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#341

Post by falcolas »

crooked-v wrote: post #336
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…

I believe page location analytics are used for the amount of money that goes to Kindle Unlimited authors, also. It can't just track the very last page in the book that you read, because authors were gaming that by encouraging people to immediately skip to the last page of very large works they didn't otherwise care about. Instead there's some kind of heuristic that tries to figure out if you've more-or-less-normally…

A good point, since KU authors are paid per page read. Lots of fraud potential there.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#342

Post by ksk »

breakfastduck wrote: post #310
ksk wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How did software and features ever get done before telemetry? IMHO, The software today is miles better at UX.

Is that because of telemetry or just the field developing naturally, though?

No, I don't think its just due to telemetry, I think its a combination of multiple factors as you suggested.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#343

Post by stjohnswarts »

As much dang money as Amazon makes off kindle, why are they also spying? I guess "because they can" will always be a useful refrain, but I really wish there was plain english version of what information they collect at any given company/web app/mobile app/OS kind of like the attorney general's warning. Not something that is 20 miles long with legalese that any non-attorney can decypher

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#344

Post by zxcb1 »

zxcb1 wrote: post #138
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.

A Kindle comes with Kindlings, a lesser form of the book, where you are being read by Amazon while reading; you are working for Amazon in ways you might never understand. The Kindling never leaves Amazon properties; it is not yours even though you paid almost the full price of a book. If there is rule of law in the US and EU, these will eventually become free e-books, that is, separated from Amazon; they will regain…

For example, readers might want to integrate their libraries into the knowledge base of their personal AI.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#346

Post by doc_gunthrop »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #321
doc_gunthrop wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you can do the conversion with Calibre.[1] 1: https://epubor.com/how-to-convert-kindle-kfx-to-epubpdfmobi-...

Last I checked (a year ago?) KFX wasn't a great input format, as it's optimized for the Kindle readers and not for conversion/interoperability. That is, KFX is to AZW3 as PDF is to HTML.

Sure, but if the book you're looking for is only available on Kindle and your eReader is not a Kindle, then the conversion is better than nothing.

I've found some O'Reilly ebooks only available on amazon in the format "Kindle Edition" (ie. KFX). Pretty aggressive market strategy from amazon given EPUB3 is the technical standard, but there you have it.

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#349

Post by GekkePrutser »

boogies wrote: post #312
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide the URLs so we can use pihole to block the requests?

(off-topic) What’re the advantages of pihole over /etc/hosts?

That it works for all devices on your network. Even ones that don't have an etc/hosts :)

Re: Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data

#350

Post by Cyphase »

mumblemumble wrote: post #128
belorn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that will ease anyone with privacy concerns. People who are against government surveillance is not against the police catching criminals and solving cold murder cases. The Golden State Killer case was a very good use of DNA profiling and DNA databases being used to catch a criminal. The problem is that many don't trust the government to only use it for those cases, and many others don't trust the techno…

We can step outside of government examples, too, and find cases where corporations getting all data sciencey with this information have accomplished some pretty ucky - and also impossible to anticipate - things. An instructive case here is Target figuring out that they could use customer purchase history to detect, with a pretty decent degree of confidence, when a customer was pregnant. They then proceeded to use thi…

Here's the Target story from 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
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