# Amazon's Eyes



## SeymourKopath (Jul 24, 2012)

Can Amazon see the books and docs on my Kindles that I've sideloaded and never uploaded to "the cloud?"

If they can see them, they can probably control them, like they can with books purchased at the Kindle Store. Is that really a power we want them to have? Remember 1984?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I think you're worried about something that isn't worth the energy to worry about.

When the _1984_ fiasco happened, Amazon admitted that it had acted without full consideration. They did remove books people had purchased more or less without warning. They did it because the books had not been legally offered for sale in the first place. On realizing that, though acting within their terms of service, what they did was extremely counter productive in terms of good customer relations, they not only refunded the purchase price to everyone who'd purchased it, they issued additional store credit as well. And said they would not do such a thing again, though they can.

But to answer the question, if you've not loaded the book via amazon's servers, they have no access to it. I'm actually not sure they have access to it even if you do load it via amazon's servers, except of course for books you've purchased from them.


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## SeymourKopath (Jul 24, 2012)

Hey, I paid good money for my custom-made tin-foil hat! My owner's certificate says I have a perfect right to be paranoid about anything I want to be paranoid about. Gotta go before I say too much. I have it on good faith that the NSA has loaded a key-logger on my computer.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

*shrug*

I'm not so sure they can't see all the files that are on the device.  But I ran out of tinfoil so I don't worry about it.  

Betsy


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

SeymourKopath said:


> Can Amazon see the books and docs on my Kindles that I've sideloaded and never uploaded to "the cloud?"
> 
> If they can see them, they can probably control them, like they can with books purchased at the Kindle Store. Is that really a power we want them to have? Remember 1984?


So, lets play this out. Let's assume they can, and they can even remove the books from the device. OK, so what does that buy them? You sideloaded the book, so that means you still have a copy of the book on your computer (or wherever you sideloaded form), so they did not take the book from you. You can easily get a different device from a competitor to read that book on, so not only did they not even stop you from reading the book, they just lost you as a customer. In short, they accomplished nothing, but drive a customer away. How does that help them make money? It does not, in fact it does the opposite. So, why would they do that? They are a for profit company that has traditional been focused on small gains over the long term. When in doubt, follow the money. 

In short, 100% of the ebooks I buy I back up someplace other than my device. Should Amazon become stupid overnight and try to take my books, I will just switch to another device any carry on. No big deal.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)




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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

*backs away slowly* .....*closes browser tab*


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## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

I don't think that Amazon is going to pay anyone to look over the books you have.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/177945-how-big-business-builds-license-plate-databases-that-track-your-every-move

Actually it appears it isn't Amazon, but repo men and other businesses, we have to worry about.unlike my youtube link earlier, this is serious. Though I think the article at the link overdramatizes things.


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## Jeh (Dec 11, 2011)

FWIW - I returned a book once, I don't recall the reason why, and Amazon removed it from my account and the cloud. Though I normally don't have the whispersync turned on, mostly because it doesn't work at my house anyway, when it did connect it they removed it from the device. 

Though I normally make mirror backups so if something happens its easier to reload. In this case I had made a copy so even after they removed it from the device, I still had it. Since I didn't want the book anyway, I just deleted it from my files. 

Bottom line if this is a fear just make a regular copy of your Kindle and it prevents our Amazon Overlords from taking too much control.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Jeh said:


> FWIW - I returned a book once, I don't recall the reason why, and Amazon removed it from my account and the cloud. Though I normally don't have the whispersync turned on, mostly because it doesn't work at my house anyway, when it did connect it they removed it from the device.
> 
> Though I normally make mirror backups so if something happens its easier to reload. In this case I had made a copy so even after they removed it from the device, I still had it. Since I didn't want the book anyway, I just deleted it from my files.
> 
> Bottom line if this is a fear just make a regular copy of your Kindle and it prevents our Amazon Overlords from taking too much control.


'They' didn't remove it from your device, exactly. You'd returned it for refund. So it was no longer in your cloud 'library'. So the next time your kindle synced, the device learned that it wasn't a title in the library and it was deleted from there as well.

It is true that, if you've made a copy on your computer, you could return it to the device by sideloading. I don't know if the coding in the book file would be such that it would remove itself again if you synced -- maybe so, since it knows what book it is and it knows it's not in your library AND you originally did purchase it from Amazon.

If the sideloaded content is not purchased from Amazon, I doubt you'd have to worry about it being deleted by 'them'. Could they? Probably. Would they? I very very much doubt it. What would be the advantage to them? The _want_ people to use their device and their cloud. If it became known that they willy nilly went in poking around and rearranging your 'furniture' so to speak, it would be INCREDIBLY BAD publicity. That would be really really foolish!


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## Jeh (Dec 11, 2011)

Ann in Arlington said:


> 'They' didn't remove it from your device, exactly. You'd returned it for refund. So it was no longer in your cloud 'library'. So the next time your kindle synced, the device learned that it wasn't a title in the library and it was deleted from there as well.
> 
> It is true that, if you've made a copy on your computer, you could return it to the device by sideloading. I don't know if the coding in the book file would be such that it would remove itself again if you synced -- maybe so, since it knows what book it is and it knows it's not in your library AND you originally did purchase it from Amazon.


I didn't want to imply theft of services but whatever. In this particular case after a refund was given and the book removed from the cloud and purchase history, the first time I turned on whispernet the book was removed from the device.

Later I did a re sync with with my computer and the book was reinstalled on my kindle, the next time I turned on whispernet it removed the book again. I have to image that Amazon DOES check your device against your purchase history for " returned/refunded" books every time you connect. But this would only apply to their books that you purchased. Otherwise my Kindle would be almost blank EVERY time I connected it as most of my books have been not been purchased form Amazon.

So for clarity to the OP, side loaded books ect cannot be removed like 1984 was as that was a purchased book via the Amazon store front. You content is your content. If it's copied, pirated ect Amazon is not you issue.


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## laurie_lu (May 10, 2010)

Jeh said:


> If it's copied, pirated ect Amazon is not you issue.


I suspect this is the real question.


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## jbcohen (Jul 29, 2011)

Depends on how you have your PC firewall configured.  My firewall is configured such that only certain programs and web sites are allowed to send information out of my PC and amazon is not one of them.  The only way that they know what is on my kindle is if I tell them or I get the book from my local library.

The thing you need to consider in this debate is the shear number of amazon customers, in order for amazon to find out what books are on their customer's Kindles it would take more resources than even amazon has to devote to the issue.  The shear number of customers they have makes it too time consuming and to resource intensive to find out.  In stead, I suspect,  that they take more of a passive approach, they do not take note of what you have on your kindle unless you tell them.  So if you don't want amazon to know don't tell them. I have side loaded books before and I doubt that amazon has any knowledge of any of them.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

It would take Amazon a week just to go through my purchases from them.
Now if you have emailed something to your kindle, it is in manage my kindle.
as per am I worried about Amazon's eyes, no.  Amazon does not even care where you bought their device.
I got my Fire somewhere else and the power cord was damaged.  Amazon gave me enough credit to buy the new cord and a couple of e-books.


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## Tia K (Sep 28, 2013)

mlewis78 said:


> I don't think that Amazon is going to pay anyone to look over the books you have.


yeah me too. they got more things to look over than someones book.


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I don't doubt that Amazon could find out what books you have on your Kindle, given that they have to know what's there in order to sync, and also delete books that you've gotten on loan with Prime. Given that, any decent programmer could write some subroutines in a few hours that could grab that info from the device and even compare it other info. 

Given that, I can't quite see what use it would be. If they were looking for pirated books, how would they distinguish that from books bought elsewhere, downloaded as public domain, or scanned for your personal use? The best they could do would be to see if you bought it from Amazon, and that seems pointless.


Mike


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

jbcohen said:


> Depends on how you have your PC firewall configured. My firewall is configured such that only certain programs and web sites are allowed to send information out of my PC and amazon is not one of them. The only way that they know what is on my kindle is if I tell them or I get the book from my local library.


This only works if the only way one puts books on a Kindle is to load them via USB even if you get them from Amazon. If one uses 3G or WiFi from the Kindle to connect to Amazon, the firewall has no impact. And, I don't believe Amazon actually looks at the data on a USB-connected Kindle no matter how the firewall is configured.

My reading of the original question was, if one has sideloaded books onto a Kindle and then connects to Amazon using WiFi or 3G, can Amazon see and remove the sideloaded books.

My answer would be that, as Amazon has provided the ability to sideload books, it's an authorized behavior and Amazon would not remove books that were purchased elsewhere and sideloaded.



Jeh said:


> If it's copied, pirated ect Amazon is not you issue.





laurie_lu said:


> I suspect this is the real question.


I don't suspect that Seymour is talking about piracy or illegal copies, if that's what is being suggested by the above. There are many sources to buy or download for free books that may be read on one's Kindle and would have to be sideloaded. Smashwords being the largest and most obvious choice. I have books from a number of sources on my Kindle, including free copies from author websites, such as _Makers_ by Cory Doctorow and a couple of bundles purchased from yet another site whose name I can't remember. Let's not assume bad behavior by members, please.

I think the question as I read it is a legitimate one, even if I don't share the concern. Would Amazon prevent, by removing them, books not purchased through Amazon from being on one's device? And if that's the question, I believe the answer is no, for the reason I explained above.

Betsy


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My reading of the original question was, if one has sideloaded books onto a Kindle and then connects to Amazon using WiFi or 3G, can Amazon see and remove the sideloaded books.
> 
> My answer would be that, as Amazon has provided the ability to sideload books, it's an authorized behavior and Amazon would not remove books that were purchased elsewhere and sideloaded.


Lets be clear here, because there is two different questions:

If the question is CAN they, then the answer is YES they CAN. They can see anything installed on the device, side loaded or not.

If the question is WILL they, then the answer is probably not. It would be a major PR blow for them with no real gain. Amazon is in it for themselves, not authors or publishers. If it hurts their relationship with their customers they are very unlikely to do it.

The only problem comes in, IMO, is if some legal power (court, feds, etc.) forces them to act (censorship, copyright case, etc.) in which case they may have to remove things that they would not want to normally. In America this might(?) be less of an issue then in other countries, but it still could happen here. How likely? Not likely enough that I will lose any sleep over. I do back my books up, but that is mainly for protection against data loss through malfunction, user error, or other normal goof up, and not really Amazon's overreaching super abilities. 

In short - I do not worry about it.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I actually think Amazon probably can't 'see' anything unless it's been loaded through Amazon. Otherwise, I expect it appears as an un-named and non-identifiable file.

I could be wrong. Maybe they can tell the titles and content of books loaded physically via a USB.

But I don't think they care and I don't spend any time worrying about it it. Heck, everything NOT from Amazon that I load, I load _through_ Amazon because I want it archived there so it's available on any of my devices. I understand exactly what that means in terms of 'their' access to it. And it doesn't bother me in the least.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I actually think Amazon probably can't 'see' anything unless it's been loaded through Amazon. Otherwise, I expect it appears as an un-named and non-identifiable file.
> I could be wrong.


I am positive you are wrong.  The device knows all about the file - and there for that information is available to Amazon. Now you could disguse the file so that it is named like "my personal diary.mobi" instead of "to kill a mocking bird.mobi" or something so that they would have to open it to know the content, but they could definitly see the file.

Again, I am not worried about them actually doing anything, but they definitely possess the tools to do it.


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## SeymourKopath (Jul 24, 2012)

VydorScope hit upon the underlying concern prompting my original question. 

Recent revelations about the US government spying on its own citizens leads me to think that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that they might someday come to Amazon with a list of books and other documents and tell them, "We want a list of your customers who have these items on their Kindles." Amazon may or may not feel compelled to comply with the government's "request." If they do comply, then the government has a ready-made list of people to add to their growing list of "People To Watch." I probably just made the list for writing this post. 

Paranoia? Maybe. Maybe not. Whether or not we are concerned about how much our government pries into our private lives (and how we react to that prying) is up to each of us to decide for ourselves.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> I actually think Amazon probably can't 'see' anything unless it's been loaded through Amazon. Otherwise, I expect it appears as an un-named and non-identifiable file.


I don't see any reason why they _wouldn't_ be able to see the data...I can't imagine that they would have some kind of filter on reading the device contents: Show only Amazon data. If I were doing troubleshooting, I'd like to know. And then there's the desire for marketing information and usage. *shrug* Until Amazon let's me into their inner circle, I won't know. 

Betsy


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Betsy,
There is also Project Gutenberg.  Another biggie for books.

I am not worried about Amazon or the government spying on me.  What are they gonna get, a recipe for chicken soup.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> I am not worried about Amazon or the government spying on me. What are they gonna get, a recipe for chicken soup.


I spent an hour today researching how to make homemade explosives from common ingredients that you can find in most homes...  Turns out aluminum foil is more handy than I would have guessed... so yeah... loosing books off my Kindle is on high on my list of government snooping concerns.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

VydorScope said:


> I spent an hour today researching how to make homemade explosives from common ingredients that you can find in most homes...  Turns out aluminum foil is more handy than I would have guessed... so yeah... loosing books off my Kindle is on high on my list of government snooping concerns.


and this is why you have your grandmother buy you "The Anarchist Cookbook". That way it is in her name not yours. Not that I would ever do anything like that.
She saw the book on a talk show and thought it would be the perfect edition to my cookbook collection.
Oh and since it is the 14 of April, I also have _Willie Nelson's IRS Tax Guide and Cooked Goose Cookbook_.


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## Jeh (Dec 11, 2011)

SeymourKopath said:


> VydorScope hit upon the underlying concern prompting my original question.
> 
> Recent revelations about the US government spying on its own citizens leads me to think that it's not beyond the realm of possibility that they might someday come to Amazon with a list of books and other documents and tell them, "We want a list of your customers who have these items on their Kindles." Amazon may or may not feel compelled to comply with the government's "request." If they do comply, then the government has a ready-made list of people to add to their growing list of "People To Watch." I probably just made the list for writing this post.
> 
> Paranoia? Maybe. Maybe not. Whether or not we are concerned about how much our government pries into our private lives (and how we react to that prying) is up to each of us to decide for ourselves.


Something to remember about all this. While they can see what's on your device and it's probably in the TOS that we all just clicked past to get reading, and this is probably true for whatever is on your cloud accounts. As far as the device goes they can only manage it from afar ONLY IF the wireless is turned on. Turned off they have no contact with the device.

I never turn mine on as I would just end up forgetting about it and the battery would die and whisper sync doesn't work last my house anyway so all my books get loaded via the USB cable.


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## GirlFriday (Jul 15, 2013)

Paranoia is such a waste of energy. Amazon has far better things to do than keep track of what you've sideloaded on to your Kindle. They don't have the resources to compile such info nor any reason to care enough to want to.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Everybody needs a hobby.


Betsy


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## sstroble (Dec 16, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> Oh and since it is the 14 of April, I also have _Willie Nelson's IRS Tax Guide and Cooked Goose Cookbook_.


Just checked Willie's book out at Amazon. New copies are from $47.58 to $114.76. Used copies are going for a penny but you have to pay $3.99 for shipping. Before I take the leap of faith in Mr. Nelson's writing abilities (his songs are classic standards but am uncertain of his nonfiction skills) how do you rate his IRS Tax Guide and Cooked Goose Cookbook?
thank you


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

sstroble said:


> Just checked Willie's book out at Amazon. New copies are from $47.58 to $114.76. Used copies are going for a penny but you have to pay $3.99 for shipping. Before I take the leap of faith in Mr. Nelson's writing abilities (his songs are classic standards but am uncertain of his nonfiction skills) how do you rate his IRS Tax Guide and Cooked Goose Cookbook?
> thank you


HI. Do you need good food and some laughs. If you like both of those, I would say spend the 4 bucks. The recipes sound fabulous. The advice will leave you laughing.


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