The dream of every retailer is to know exactly what its customers are thinking. Are they comparison-shopping? Just looking? Will a discount help close the deal? Or is price no object? Amazon’s coming tablet, the Kindle Fire, is equipped with a Web browser that, thanks to the wonders of cloud computing, is partly housed on Amazon’s servers. That will give the retailer opportunities to track customer behavior all over the Web, gathering data and marketing intelligence as it goes.
Representative Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, has concerns about the Fire’s potential implications. On Friday he sent Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, a letter asking for more information about how the retailer intends to gather Internet data. This is the first request the caucus has ever made of Amazon.
Among the congressman’s questions: What information is Amazon planning to collect? Does it plan to sell, rent or otherwise make available this customer information to outside companies? How will it convey its privacy policy to users? Will customers be asked to opt-in to having their browsing tracked, or will they have to opt out?
Amazon declined to comment. When it introduced the Fire two weeks ago, the retailer drew a bold line between activity on its own site and on the rest of the Internet. The first is individually tracked (with the user’s permission) but the second would not be. All browsing activity would be aggregated and not linked to individual users’ identities.
This could get very blurry, however. For instance, if you use the tablet to buy a novel by Umberto Eco, Amazon might promote another book by Mr. Eco to you. But if you use the tablet to post reviews of
Italian restaurants on Yelp, Amazon would merely collect that data, bundle it with the fact that a lot of customers in your community seemed to be favorably reviewing Italian restaurants, and then strike a deal with one restaurant to offer discounts, which it would e-mail to you. Some customers might feel tracked; others might not even notice.
“Consumers may buy the new Kindle Fire to read 1984, but they may not realize that the tablets Big Browser may watching their every keystroke when they are online, Mr. Markey said. As the use of mobile devices, especially tablets, becomes ubiquitous, we must ensure that user privacy is protected and proper safeguards are in place so that consumers know if and when their personal information is being used and for what purpose.
Users can also turn off the cloud side of the Fire’s browser, although the device presumably would then suffer some slowdown — defeating at least part of the point of having the tablet in the first place.
Representative Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who is co-chairman of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, has concerns about the Fire’s potential implications. On Friday he sent Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, a letter asking for more information about how the retailer intends to gather Internet data. This is the first request the caucus has ever made of Amazon.
Among the congressman’s questions: What information is Amazon planning to collect? Does it plan to sell, rent or otherwise make available this customer information to outside companies? How will it convey its privacy policy to users? Will customers be asked to opt-in to having their browsing tracked, or will they have to opt out?
Amazon declined to comment. When it introduced the Fire two weeks ago, the retailer drew a bold line between activity on its own site and on the rest of the Internet. The first is individually tracked (with the user’s permission) but the second would not be. All browsing activity would be aggregated and not linked to individual users’ identities.
This could get very blurry, however. For instance, if you use the tablet to buy a novel by Umberto Eco, Amazon might promote another book by Mr. Eco to you. But if you use the tablet to post reviews of
Italian restaurants on Yelp, Amazon would merely collect that data, bundle it with the fact that a lot of customers in your community seemed to be favorably reviewing Italian restaurants, and then strike a deal with one restaurant to offer discounts, which it would e-mail to you. Some customers might feel tracked; others might not even notice.
“Consumers may buy the new Kindle Fire to read 1984, but they may not realize that the tablets Big Browser may watching their every keystroke when they are online, Mr. Markey said. As the use of mobile devices, especially tablets, becomes ubiquitous, we must ensure that user privacy is protected and proper safeguards are in place so that consumers know if and when their personal information is being used and for what purpose.
Users can also turn off the cloud side of the Fire’s browser, although the device presumably would then suffer some slowdown — defeating at least part of the point of having the tablet in the first place.
0 komentar :
Post a Comment