[x-pubpol] Your E-book is reading you

[Joly MacFie]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwODEyNDgyWj.html

<snip>

Amazon can identify which passages of digital books are popular with
readers, and shares some of this data publicly on its website through
features such as its "most highlighted passages" list. Readers
digitally "highlight" selections using a button on the Kindle; they
can also opt to see the lines commonly highlighted by other readers as
they read a book. Amazon aggregates these selections to see what gets
underlined the most. Topping the list is the line from the "Hunger
Games" trilogy. It is followed by the opening sentence of "Pride and
Prejudice."

"We think of it as the collective intelligence of all the people
reading on Kindle," says Amazon spokeswoman Kinley Pearsall.

Some privacy watchdogs argue that e-book users should be protected
from having their digital reading habits recorded. "There's a societal
ideal that what you read is nobody else's business," says Cindy Cohn,
legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit
group that advocates for consumer rights and privacy. "Right now,
there's no way for you to tell Amazon, I want to buy your books, but I
don't want you to track what I'm reading."

Amazon declined to comment on how it analyzes and uses the Kindle data
it gathers.

EFF has pressed for legislation to prevent digital book retailers from
handing over information about individuals' reading habits as evidence
to law enforcement agencies without a court's approval. Earlier this
year, California instituted the "reader privacy act," which makes it
more difficult for law-enforcement groups to gain access to consumers'
digital reading records. Under the new law, agencies must get a court
order before they can require digital booksellers to turn over
information revealing which books their customers have browsed,
purchased, read and underlined. The American Civil Liberties Union and
EFF, which partnered with Google and other organizations to push for
the legislation, are now seeking to enact similar laws in other
states.

Bruce Schneier, a cyber-security expert and author, worries that
readers may steer clear of digital books on sensitive subjects such as
health, sexuality and security—including his own works—out of fear
that their reading is being tracked. "There are a gazillion things
that we read that we want to read in private," Mr. Schneier says.

There are some 40 million e-readers and 65 million tablets in use in
the U.S., according to analysts at Forrester Research. In the first
quarter of 2012, e-books generated $282 million in sales, compared to
$230 million for print, the Association of American Publishers
recently found.
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