Commentary
Markey Questions Amazon About Silk Browser's Tracking Feature
- by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 14, 2011
Lawmakers are raising concerns about Amazon's new Kindle Fire, which comes with Silk, a new browser that can transmit information about every site users visit back to the retail giant.
Silk can run in either an “off-cloud” mode or on Amazon's cloud-computing network. If users run Silk “off-cloud,” Amazon doesn't receive information about sites visited, but pages take longer to load. Users who run the browser through Amazon's cloud-computer network will experience faster mobile browsing, but will share all of their Web activity with Amazon. The company says in its terms and conditions that it will log URLs for the pages it serves, along with IP or MAC addresses, for up to 30 days.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who along with Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) co-chairs a House privacy caucus, raised concerns about Amazon's new browser at a panel hearing on Thursday.
Today, Markey fired off a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos questioning the company's plans. Specifically, the lawmaker wants to know what information Amazon will collect, whether the company intends to share that data with third parties, how Amazon intends to tell users about its privacy policy, and whether the company will allow users to opt-in to the data collection.
“By coupling the Fire with Silk, Amazon can essentially track each and every Web click of its customers,” Markey wrote. “Amazon will know where people shop, what items they buy, when they buy them, and how much they pay.”
Wendy Davis is a Senior Writer at MediaPost. You can reach Wendy at wdavis@mediapost.com
This is a really bad idea. Forcing consumers to accept tracking in order to get a solution to work is fundamentally wrong. You can say they don't have to use the service, but the problem is this will become standard industry practice without industry standards in place to stop it. If we don't establish industry standards then we can't complain when the government starts writing regulations.
Begging to be controlled.