Let's say you look at coverage of the new $199 Kindle Fire from Amazon.com. You check out its product page, maybe some stories on Yahoo! News, and you think "I've got to get me some of that." So you preorder the 7-inch color tablet, and while you're there on Amazon's site you pick up some other things; a new ebook for your Kindle, some games for your Android phone, and a movie to watch later on.
On November 15 the Kindle Fire ships. And when it arrives at your doorstep, it greets you by name ... and asks if you'd like to read that book, play those games, or watch that movie you bought. Holy crud, the thing's psychic! Or maybe it's just tied deeply into Amazon.com's online services ... a little too deeply, perhaps, for some people's comfort.
First, the good news
If you already own a black-and-white Kindle, or are otherwise used to buying things from Amazon.com, you're in for a treat: With the Kindle Fire in your hands, you'll be able to burn holes in your bank account like never before. Not just ebooks, but games, apps, movies, music, and the usual assortment of physical merchandise. You'll also have a free one-month Amazon Prime membership, which means all that snail mailed stuff will arrive at your door in two days.
It's not just for buying stuff, though. Amazon Prime members can stream "over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows," commercial-free. You can upload your existing music collection to Amazon Cloud Drive, and listen to it while you're reading. Some libraries already lend Kindle books, and of course there's the web ... free and unfiltered, and better than ever on a 7-inch multitouch tablet.
Or is it?
Web browsers download pages from the Internet and then show them to you, right?
Not in the Kindle Fire's case. It uses Amazon Silk, the "Revolutionary Cloud-Accelerated 'Split Browser'". And what that "Split Browser" thing means is that Amazon's servers download the pages, "optimize" stuff, and then send them to you on your Kindle.
Creepy, or not? There's more: Amazon's Silk FAQ says that "web pages you visit using Amazon Silk may be cached to improve performance," and that "certain web address information will be collected to help troubleshoot". Its Terms and Conditions say that "We generally do not keep this information for longer than 30 days."
Neither page says anything about learning what websites you go to, and using that to recommend products to you on Amazon.com. But then, "Amazon reserves the right to make changes to the Agreement at any time by posting the revised terms on the Amazon.com website." What are you going to do if they change it to say that, stop using your Kindle's web browser? Or start getting some interesting recommendations based on your late-night web surfing?
The Upshot
Android's promise of openness may be a boon for tinkerers. But it's been an even bigger bonus to companies like Amazon.com, which can use it to create a tightly controlled experience for their customers ... for better or for worse.
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