
Kindle collects a surprisingly large amount of data - BCharlie
https://nullsweep.com/kindle-collects-a-surprisingly-large-amount-of-data/
======
falcolas
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 highlight a
word, the translation, definition, and wiki page is brought up, so of course
it's being sent to bing and wikipedia.

There are valid concerns here (there's too much information being sent overall
- the location data doesn't need to be sent with every page turn, for
example), but these concerns are being buried behind FUD about none of this
data needing to be transmitted.

EDIT: Can I also point out the ironic nature of griping about Amazon's
analytics collection while running an analytics suite on the webpage yourself?

zql=Kindle%20Collects%20a%20Surprisingly%20Large%20Amount%20of%20Data pqo=1
xfg=1 xqi=946451 h=8 m=58 s=11 eqm=https%3A%2F%2Fnullsweep.com%2Fkindle-
collects-a-surprisingly-large-amount-of-data%2F
uel=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2F nvn=b271bb7f9e0fe444 xpx=1598364493
bqq=2 oso=0 ajh=1598366510 lyz=1598364493
_ref=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com%2F euq=0 cookie=1 res=1080x1920
fpr=429 rlp=xnxpI1

~~~
BCharlie
I mention that the data that appears to be used for those purposes is sent
again in a separate request to a separate end point, so we have two types of
requests: last read location, and reading analytics. Sorry it wasn't clear,
I'll try to improve the wording.

~~~
falcolas
Will you also be updating and noting that the requests to Wikipedia and Bing
are for explicit customer-benefiting features?

Might be worth noting that you can opt out of their data collection (on the
e-reader, at a minimum) as well. Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options
> Privacy or in the device management console in your account on amazon.com

~~~
danShumway
The text in question:

> Highlighting or tapping any word will send the requests with the text to
> Bing Translate and Wikipedia, as well as back to Amazon.

Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the
"translate" button? Is there a reason why it needs to be sent to Amazon?

~~~
fouric
> Is there a reason why that text needs to be sent before the user clicks the
> "translate" button?

Yes - UX latency. I would expect this kind of thing to take a few thousand
milliseconds, and shaving off a few hundred milliseconds from between when the
user highlights text and when they select "translate" is significant. The fact
that this data is being sent to _Wikipedia_ of all places further signals that
the usage is likely to be innocuous.

Do I think that this is globally a good design decision? No, for both
engineering and privacy reasons. There's _definitely_ no good reason why it
should be sent to Amazon at all.

~~~
freeone3000
The screen refresh rate on these devices is measured in _seconds_ , so a few
hundred millis of network latency is impossible to display.

~~~
fouric
This isn't universally true - Dan Luu's computer latency page[1] lists three
Kindles, all below 900 ms of latency. And, since _some_ devices have latency
as low as 570 ms, it makes sense that they would use this optimization.

[1] [https://danluu.com/input-lag/](https://danluu.com/input-lag/)

------
Despoisj
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.

~~~
breakfastduck
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.

~~~
falcolas
The kindle e-readers do offer an opt-out from the metrics collection. It can
be triggered from the website or the device itself.

That it's an opt-out and not opt-in is not a good thing, but it can be opted
out of on the e-readers.

~~~
gavreh
What are the steps to do this?

~~~
ptman
[https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-
console/deviceprivacy...](https://www.amazon.com/hz/mycd/digital-
console/deviceprivacycentre/) ?

~~~
zxcb1
Does not work, can you point to a tutorial? And does this include the Kindle
app?

------
Mediterraneo10
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 airplane mode off. All my ebooks come
from sources other than Amazon (mainly LibGen, for example), and they can be
easily transferred over to the Kindle by USB because the Kindle appears as any
ordinary USB drive to a computer.

~~~
BEEdwards
Why buy a kindle at all then?

Any cheap budget tablet can read ebooks and stay off the internet.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Any cheap budget table isn't e-ink, which matters for battery life and, at
least for some people, reading pleasure. Also, I mainly use my Kindle for
reading research papers in academia, into the hundreds of publications each
year. So, after years of using these devices its UI (which I find admirably
simple and straightforward) is burned into my muscle memory. So, switching to
another series of devices would mean having to adjust to a new workflow that
may well bring unwelcome complexities.

~~~
int_19h
There are many cheap e-ink readers on the market these days, though.

~~~
dexterdog
I've never seen one that has the bang for the buck of a basic paperwhite. I
got my last one for under $100 and I never use the amazon nonsense. I just
keep it in airplane mode and load my own books.

------
andrewzah
This is a bit unfortunate, because the kindle paperwhite is just phenomenal.
It's easy on my eyes and it's a godsend for traveling. I suppose the solution
here is to just keep it in offline mode when not syncing books.

[edit] as others have noted, it's possible to permanently use offline mode,
and transfer books via usb cable.

> Unfortunately, in order to use a non-Kindle application, I have to buy DRM-
> Free books.

One can remove DRM for amazon's ebook format (.azw3 ?) via some python
scripts. You didn't hear it from me though.

~~~
BorisTheBrave
> Each request also isn't sent as soon as it's generated. A number of these
> records are created and stored locally, then uploaded (note the
> sequence_number field). Even if a person is offline while reading, this data
> is stored and sent when reconnected.

Keeping it in offline mode doesn't help.

~~~
calcifer
> Keeping it in offline mode doesn't help.

Permanently keeping it offline and only transferring via USB does.

------
dusted
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.

~~~
tweetle_beetle
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](https://authorize.kobo.com/terms/privacypolicy)

~~~
dusted
Oh, I've actually never read that, I wrongly assumed that != Amazon == good
guys.

------
uberman
I think you mean "Predictably" rather than "Surprisingly".

~~~
techer
“Obviously”.

What isn’t collecting “too much” data at this point?

------
badRNG
I'm sure someone like me always has the same "hot take" in every thread
regarding this, but I honestly still love reading physical books. After
spending a day weary of interacting with screens all day, there is something
nice about tapping in to this activity that humans have done for hundreds of
years. Sure, e-ink is easier on the eyes, but isolating myself with a good
book can be a near spiritual experience.

~~~
slipheen
I love reading physical books too, the user experience of them is so much
nicer.

I also like to go back to re-read books. With non-fiction I'll often want to
go back to reference or quote something, and with fiction I love reimmersing
myself in the worlds the author's create.

I've amassed quite a little library of books that I still enjoy having access
to and it's lovely. But it's also /terribly/ inconvenient to move to a new
apartment. It's also quite annoying when I'm visiting a place, and I'd love to
pull up a favourite story but didn't think to bring it with me.

I've started moving to a hybrid solution - My absolute favourite stories I
keep in paper because I enjoy the feel, but for most books having them
digitally much nicer.

~~~
dhosek
I have great spatial memory for things I've read. I was able to pull up a
quote from a book that I read the summer of 1992 seven years later because I
remembered roughly where in the book and on the page the quote appeared. I
could probably go to my library and find it still another 21 years later. I
don't get that from e-books.

------
greentimer
It would be quite interesting to know how this data is actually used on
Amazon's servers. It reminds me of the criticisms of government data
collection programs, that they just hoover up every bit of data that's
available without actually knowing what to do with it. Suppose you train some
AI to predict what pages in a book will be most engaging to the reader. Since
your interface to the book is still just going to be something where people
can turn the pages what are you actually going to do with that information?
It's a massive sacrifice of the privacy of the user for small gains at best in
getting insight into the user's behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if this
information is sitting in a database somewhere at Amazon completely unused.

The philosophy of Amazon appears to be to do as much as possible in the hopes
that one day it will be useful. This is at odds with the principle of
philosophical skepticism, that because we can't be sure of the consequences of
our actions we should strive to do as little as possible. The data could be
hacked and leak out, for example. There is tremendous uncertainty around
things like that.

------
Timpy
I formed my opinion before clicking the article, already working out some
comments in my mind like "who's surprised?" After reading the article though,
surprisingly my opinion changed. This doesn't seem all that bad. I don't doubt
that Amazon is over-collecting, but the samples he posted seem like it's just
information for syncing reading position and settings. Of all the nefarious
things Amazon does with data, I don't think that's one of them.

------
client4
I did some research on early Android sending a bunch of data back to Google's
servers, a few months later the information was encoded/encrypted before being
sent over the wire. I'd be curious if the next app version of Kindle started
obfuscating what it was sending back home.

------
zdw
Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively downloading
a book? The battery lasts 3-4x as long with it disabled (on my 3rd gen device
at least).

I doubt most users need a real-time sync of their book location to the cloud,
unless they read on multiple devices.

Also, if you use the kindle to get loaned/library books on this particular
model, they aren't removed even if the due-date is exceeded until you
reconnect to wifi, which has been handy at times...

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
> Why would you leave on wifi on an e-ink kindle, when not actively
> downloading a book?

One of the much-advertised features of the Kindle is its ability to highlight
a word and look it up against a dictionary, against Wikipedia, or against the
web.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
You don't need internet connectivity on the Kindle to look up a word in a
dictionary. The Kindle supports dictionaries in Mobipocket format, so the
dictionary lives right on the device. It is easy to find .mobi dictionaries
for major languages freely available from torrent communities.

Using the Kindle's Wikipedia function actually requires going through Amazon's
servers and is a privacy violation, so I would not recommend users do that.

------
torgian
I’m not surprised, but I suggest the Kobo e-reader to the OP. Can use multiple
formats, easy to upload books to it, and some models have expandable memory.
You can completely disconnect it from the internet if you want.

~~~
dade_
There is also alternative open source firmware available for Kobo devices:
[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)

------
parksy
I tried to read the first link in the article, the link in the sentence

"There have been cases of Amazon removing specific books from customer
accounts (and kindles)."

It redirected me from:

[https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-
th...](https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-
kindle-5317703)

to

[https://www.gizmodo.com.au/amazon-secretly-
removes-1984-from...](https://www.gizmodo.com.au/amazon-secretly-
removes-1984-from-the-kindle-5317703?r=US)

So it seems I am not allowed to read up about this reference.

Or some underpaid developer messed up the redirects.

Either way this issue about data collection is interesting in its own right,
but this other issue of global redirects also feels important, but I only say
that as someone who tried to follow the news here.

------
willvarfar
Fascinating investigation and good article.

But this doesn't actually surprise anybody, right?

------
bambax
> _Unfortunately, in order to use a non-Kindle application, I have to buy DRM-
> Free books_

No. All you have to do is own an old Kindle (buy one on ebay if necessary).
Then you can download DRM protected Kindle files from Amazon for this old
device, and Calibre and the appropriate plugin can un-DRM them, and transform
them in any other format (epub, mobi, text, rtf...) for you to use on your app
of choice.

It's certainly better to buy DRM-free books directly if you can find them, but
the above solution works quite well.

------
bsharitt
I use my Kindle Paperwhite completely offline. I factory reset it and haven't
connected it to WiFi since and just side load what I need(I did have to strip
the DRM from my Kindle books to side load them on the unregistered device). I
never really used the online features when it was registered previously and
kept it in airplane mode to help with batter life. Another bonus is that if a
freshly reset Kindle never connects to the internet, you never get the ads.

------
mmrezaie
How are the alternatives. Although i will miss my collection of books but I'm
going to be in the market for the next ebook reader.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
Kobo's have comparable (even superior, IMO) hardware to the Kindle line. The
thing that everyone who migrates from Kindle to Kobo seems to get hung up on
is that it does not have an option to wirelessly sync books that have been
sideloaded across devices. This is because Kobo does not give everyone a
private cloud like Amazon does (I imagine it would be prohibitively expensive
to do so for anyone _but_ Amazon).

It's not a big deal for me, but apparently it's a dealbreaker for some Kindle
refugees that they can't start reading a sideloaded book on their phone and
pick up where they left off when they open their Kobo.

~~~
fouc
I have a $350 Kobo Forma and the UI is so slow compared to my $200 Kindle. It
takes a long time to startup and it has horrible & slow touch detection which
makes it really hard to highlight quotes properly.

Maybe other Kobo variants do better however.

------
submeta
Would love to replace my Kindle with another device. Any recommendations? -
Also, I appreciate a local file on the Kindle that logs all my highlights
(this file is called `My Clippings.txt‘. I parse that file and have a
wonderful summary of the books I read. Any other ebook reader that creates a
file like that?

------
zerkten
It will make people uncomfortable, but this is standard practice in terms of
event collection for analytics. Many articles here write about discovery from
the side of a particular app or site.

If people reviewed some analytics solutions (many trials are available), then
they'd see how pervasive this is and what product vendors are encouraging. The
like's of Amazon have much more scrutiny around the use of data collected than
those of smaller organizations. Obviously, they wield great market power so
the concerns are broader, but an attacker has a much better chance of raiding
smaller developers for volumes of data with much the same fidelity.

------
donor20
Some users also buy a Kindle which is subsidized by ads? I pay to avoid this
and change privacy settings..

If you are using a device designed to market to you - they almost all run ads
and collect analytics. I guess this is technically not a user facing feature,
but it provides some user benefit (cheaper price).

Does anyone know sales breakdowns? If everyone is concerned about privacy /
not being marketed too I guess the versions with ads are not selling. But I've
been surprised not that marketing platforms collect data (authors website did)
but that most users don't care about this "abuse" that the author is so
concerned about.

------
gwbas1c
The early Kindles didn't do this. It used to annoy me to no end that I'd have
to manually tell my Kindle to sync when I was done reading.

Originally, I didn't realize this. I learned this when I'd pull out my phone
in a waiting room, or on a train, only to not be anywhere near where I last
read the book on my physical Kindle.

Now, I'm quite happy that Kindle syncs aggressively. I use an old phone to
read in my hot tub, and it's great that the book opens up to the last place I
read it, no matter which phone I'm using.

------
bitdivision
I can't find a reference to it now, but I recently read something referencing
the massive quantities of kindle data amazon give you when making a GDPR data
subject access request. I think it was something like 100k rows of data for
one user.

Perhaps I should do that myself.

Edit: You can request your kindle data here (UK version):
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/privacycentral/dsar/preview.html](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/privacycentral/dsar/preview.html)

~~~
bitdivision
I still can't find the original post I read, but the guardian wrote about this
recently [1]

[1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/amazon-
ki...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/amazon-kindle-data-
reading-tracking-privacy)

------
rubidium
Kindle is a great tech (e-ink) with a terribly expensive ecosystem (amazon
store) for books.

I load all the books I get directly from my computer (Mostly from project
Gutenberg).

Turning airplane mode on permanently now.

------
paranorman
Are these requests sent to a separate domain? I may have missed it in the
article but it’d be great to know whether we could null route these without
disrupting functionality.

~~~
BCharlie
That's a great idea! It looks like the 'bad' stuff goes to unagi-na.amazon.com

~~~
paranorman
Awesome, thanks for the quick reply. I'll add this to my pihole config.

------
sloshnmosh
I’ve found similar concerns in an official church scripture app which I will
not name.

It was sending an enormous amount of data back to the church including what
the user was reading and for how long, everything the user highlighted or
bookmarked etc.

It was enough to really question the need for such data.

I really believe that if that data served a legitimate purpose to the
functionality of the app (which I’m sure a lot of it did) then the data should
have been saved locally on the users device.

------
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

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
After I put Pihole on the network, wife's kindle was almost immediately the
biggest offender.

That said, the article appears to list activity type ( which is problematic in
itself -- time stamp + person is reading now ). I can see a legitimate use for
it, but I also hate the idea of being profiled in that way.

To be perfectly honest, Kindle does not seem to pull more than average Android
phone ( thought that is problematic in itself ).

------
calcifer
I have a 2015 Kindle Paperwhite. I've put it on flight mode the day it arrived
and it never went online again. Yes, loading new books takes slightly more
effort (I use USB transfer with Calibre) but the peace of mind I get is more
than worth it. Unlike OP, Amazon can neither track my reading habits (beyond
my ebook purchases) nor delete anything from my Kindle.

------
sentinel
That doesn't seem like a large amount of data.

The character analytics stuff is probably contractual obligations they have to
publishers. The publishers probably want to double check the way people read
as well and ensure that they are paid out correctly.

The other logging, as someone else mentioned is probably analytics for their
own product development.

------
derefr
I was always curious why Amazon's Dynamo was co-developed for Kindle. Kindle
didn't seem like the sort of product that required its own scale-free key-
value store. An object store, certainly (for the books themselves); and maybe
a relatively-mundane sharded key-value store, for read positions.

But this kind of explains it, to me.

------
aww_dang
Amazon loses when users take the discounted kindle, never enable wifi and
source books from libgen. These users would be addressing their privacy
concerns and saving money. Perhaps it isn't the largest market, but Amazon
isn't exactly incentivizing participation with these privacy policies.

------
blindm
This is why I am skeptical of Kindle. It's Orwellian to know all the details
of a person's reading habits, and all the minutia of a reading session.

This is why I download e-books from the dark web and read them on an airgapped
machine, free from The-eye-of-Amazon

------
sasaf5
> The local IP is the only item on here that bothers me, though I couldn't
> find any other local network information that would be problematic.

It seems that the author is not really that surprised with the amount of data
being collected.

------
stormdennis
So one way to avoid all data gathering might be to keep your Kindle on
airplane mode permanently and load/remove books via USB. Battery would last
longer too. It also kills ads on the cheaper version of the Kindle.

------
the_arun
What is the surprise? Who doesn't collect data? As long as that data is
anonymized and used for improving their product(s), I am fine. It will be
scary if the data is used for selling ads/data itself.

------
m4tthumphrey
OT: What is the app used in the screenshot to capture the HTTP requests?

~~~
synackrst
Looks like mitmproxy --
[https://mitmproxy.org/posts/releases/mitmproxy5/](https://mitmproxy.org/posts/releases/mitmproxy5/)
.

------
frankie_t
I had a funny situation with kindle. It was connecting to the internet all the
time, I enabled airplane mode and then it started complaining about it all the
time.

Out of spite I added password to my wifi (I didn't have any and I even named
my hotspot smth like "free" for my neighbors to use, wouldn't do that now).

To my surprise, some ~8months later I discovered my kindle to happily connect
to my wifi. I'm pretty sure I would never enter the password there, because
the kindle was the reason I added password to begin with. Maybe there is some
more sane explanation than "kindle bruteforced my wifi", like a bug or some
nuance in authorization protocol?

edit: it happened 7 years ago with kindle 2013 paperwhite.

------
simonswords82
Given how data driven Amazon is this is not really a surprise, is it?

------
MobileVet
Our local library does drive up pick up. Obviously not as instant as a
download... but man it is nice to leave the house for a few minutes. Kills two
birds with one stone.

------
rvrabec
Cool investigation. Thanks for sharing. Have you analyzed what data Marvin
collects in each session? Before switching I'd want to see a comparison.

------
jihadjihad
Just wait until they learn about the "behavioral reading" data collected by,
oh I don't know, virtually every media site on the Internet.

~~~
Shared404
The biggest difference in my mind is that the Kindle is hardware you purchase.

It has no need to be sending that much data, including attempting to find out
the local IP.

The article stated that a few seconds of usage sent 100 requests to Amazon
servers. I'm fairly certain that most websites don't make quite as many
requests as the tablet did.

~~~
eclipxe
Who cares if your local IP is sent somewhere?!??

~~~
Shared404
Okay lets rephrase it as:

"Large corporation collects massive amounts of data, including data that could
only be useful if trying to do something malicious on someone else's network."

------
biophysboy
Most of the time my Kindle is on airplane mode - does anybody know if my
Kindle will still send this data later all at once, when the wifi is on?

------
jacknews
Surprisingly?

Legitimate or not, it seems obvious that Amazon would be heavily monitoring
device use, especially with the ad-supplemented devices.

------
aftergibson
Can anyone provide a viable open source or non-privacy invasive alternative
that isn’t something I need to assemble myself?

------
theptip
This is covered in the terms of service (you read those before using the
device, right?):

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GQFYXZHZB2H629WN)

That doc also includes instructions for how to opt-out of this collection:

> you may opt out of processing of your personal data relating to the use of
> your Kindle e-reader collected by the operating system of that device
> ("device usage data") for marketing and product improvement purposes via All
> Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Privacy. If you turn this
> setting off, we will stop processing this device usage data for the purposes
> of serving you customized marketing offers and improving our products and
> features. Turning this setting off will not affect... your ability to use
> features of the device, such as data syncing or backup features or Special
> Offers we display if you purchased a device that includes Special Offers, as
> we will continue to collect and process your data to deliver those features
> to you

I'm interested to see whether this sort of biometric/behavioural data will
ever be thought of as Personal Data under GDPR (since I bet you can identify
someone from their browsing behaviour, just like you can using walking gait
and typing cadence). If that was the case you'd need to present an opt-in when
you first booted the device, which I think would resolve the complaints from
most folks in this thread.

------
altdatathrow
How was this achieved? I didn’t realize a Kindle supported HTTP proxys or
installing root certs?

------
TedDoesntTalk
> The local IP is the only item on here that bothers me

What! Why? What about all the other data?

------
sdsvsdgggggg
What irks me about it is that Amazon doesn't give me access to that data.

------
WalterBright
I just turn off the Kindle's wifi unless I actually need it.

------
DNied
How is anyone still using a Kindle after the 1984 scandal?

------
nikbackm
Just use airplane mode? Will also increase the battery life.

~~~
Shared404
From the article:

> Each request also isn't sent as soon as it's generated. A number of these
> records are created and stored locally, then uploaded (note the
> sequence_number field). Even if a person is offline while reading, this data
> is stored and sent when reconnected.

That being said, if you leave airplane mode on permanently and sideload books,
you should be fine.

------
dt3ft
As a shareholder, this is disappointing to read.

------
agarzenm
Maybe I am getting less fervent about privacy and data security but I don't
see these metrics as PII.

This is a complete whataboutism but you gave Amazon a lot more information
when you purchased the kindle from them.

I think the answer is Amazon should add an option to turn this off.

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Mediterraneo10
> you gave Amazon a lot more information when you purchased the kindle from
> them.

Kindles are sold in physical locations – at least in the EU, many Kindle
owners got their device from a local electronics shop. You don't necessarily
have to order them from Amazon. Then, when you unbox it, there is no
requirement to register with Amazon or even connect to the internet at all.

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1nikoalvin1
definitely going to be selling my kindle now...

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switch11
an interesting article

thanks for sharing this

thankfully Kindle is not selling very much (relatively) so it is not a big
issue if they collect a lot of data

