Well, I see the flacks have done a good job of promoting A9 to the free world, because it’s all the yackety-yack in the biblioblogosphere, not to mention that hotbed of information theory, the Washington Post. Which is a story for another day: how innocent librarians can become less vulnerable to flacks and spin (even if journalists still fall for the bait).
Before deciding A9 is a must-use, take a close look at their privacy policy, particularly if you are an Amazon user: “PLEASE NOTE THAT A9.COM IS A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF AMAZON.COM, INC. IF YOU HAVE AN ACCOUNT ON AMAZON.COM AND AN AMAZON.COM COOKIE, INFORMATION GATHERED BY A9.COM, AS DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY NOTICE, MAY BE CORRELATED WITH ANY PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION THAT AMAZON.COM HAS AND USED BY A9.COM AND AMAZON.COM TO IMPROVE THE SERVICES WE OFFER.”
Ah, now we see who benefits! You, gentle reader, get a kewl tool you can play with for a while. Amazon gets to “gather information” and “correlate” it with your “personally identifiable information.”
Please read the rest of the privacy policy. Carefully. Even if you’re comfortable with it today (and I’m not), A9 is basically telling you that when they get to be bought up by a Big Ol’ Company, whatever you do on A9 is vulnerable to more exploitation.
You can use an alternate site, http://generic.a9.com, but of course most users won’t read that far, not after A9 has been breathlessly touted by the easily excitable. (Based on its description, the alternate site might as well have a big sign on the door, “for pleasure-avoiding privacy fundamentalists only”).
For now, I’ll stick with the inconvenient world where I store my own information and use it as I–and only I–see fit. Meanwhile, I’d like to see more librarian reviews of new technology that began with a critical stance and worked backwards from there.
Posted on this day, other years:
- A Recording of "The Outlaw Bride" - 2009
- FSU Avoids Further Weakening GLBT Support - 2007
- Help Katrina with A Human Nancy Pearl Doll - 2005
- Donate Online to ALA Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund - 2005
See, I don’t know. I think anyone who feels they’ve got complete privacy on the net is kidding themselves. Maybe giving a little to get a little is worth it? I love my toolbars, but they’re definitely keeping my history. I have a spyware blocker – do you know how many things Washington Post and NY Times try to download?
While I agree that everyone should read and understand privacy policies (and EULAs) — and always question flacks (see http://www.prwatch.org) — I think your concern about a9 is misdirected. Amazon is already “Big Ol’ Company,” and is not going to sell a9.com. Amazon will use the information to determine how to sell more products on its site.
Amazon has great tools for finding media. For example, last year’s rollout of “Search Inside the Book” is revolutionary. However, as Amazon expands their sales into more non-media items, they’ve realized that search is “hard.” With a book, once you have several thousand data points, you can confidently say “People who shopped for ‘Cat In the Hat’ also shopped for ‘Green Eggs and Ham'” This doesn’t map very well to products like jewelry, musical instruments, or KitchenAid mixers. As a data-driven company, Amazon needs a way to suggest products.
They couldn’t buy/exclusively partner with Google or Yahoo, so they started their own search subsidiary to complement and leverage their other acquisitions (IMDB, Alexa).
As you’ve also noted, if you don’t like what a9 says, there are alternatives… like google 🙂
Karen,
Very funny you should post about this as I had, just yesterday, read that very policy and had the same reaction. I was compelled to read it after doing as Michael McCrorty suggested and typing in my name to see “what they had on me.” It was a bit creepy to see my picture come up, I must admit.
I’m not suggesting this is some super fantastic nefarious plot to correlate my name with my face, I’ve made that easy enough for them….but nonetheless, I got the willies.
The privacy statement goes on to say, by that way, that if they ever sell A9 to anyone, all your personal info goes along with the sale. Of course. Oh and they can change the privacy policy at any time and if you don’t like it, just quite using it. Wonder what happens to all that personally identifying information after you quit?