While I quite like the potential of the Amazon Kindle – the Kindle version of RGD is still doing very well as an economics bestseller – I really do not like Amazon’s attitude about its ownership of the Kindle network.
There have already been plenty of questions over who “owns” the ebooks you’ve bought, with stories of remotely deactivated books and remotely deactivated features — neither of which happens when you have a real physical book. But there are also other concerns opened up by newly activated features. Apparently one new feature — sent in by a few concerned readers — is that Amazon will now remotely upload and store the user notes and highlights you take on your Kindle, which it then compiles into “popular highlights.”
At the very least, Amazon needs to do this as an opt-in option. I don’t think any amount of ease of use is worth granting both the power and the legal permission to sift through your data to a third party.