Adobe's Digital Editions 4 reportedly scrapes ebook info from users, uploads it to Adobe

Alessandra Kelley · Oct 7, 2014

http://the-digital-reader.com/2014/...collecting-data-ebook-libraries/#.VDRVrWt5mSP

The Digital Reader blog reports that Adobe's Digital Editions 4 app scrapes a remarkable amount of ebook information from users' devices and uploads it unencrypted to Adobe.

Adobe is gathering data on the ebooks that have been opened, which pages were read, and in what order. All of this data, including the title, publisher, and other metadata for the book is being sent to Adobe’s server in clear text.

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Adobe isn’t just tracking what users are doing in DE4; this app was also scanning my computer, gathering the metadata from all of the ebooks sitting on my hard disk, and uploading that data to Adobe’s servers.

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And just to be clear, this includes not just ebooks I opened in DE4, but also ebooks I store in calibre and every Epub ebook I happen to have sitting on my hard disk.

I don't know if I am reading this properly. Are there subtleties I am missing here? Is this a reliable source? Is this, as it looks, a bad thing, and possibly in violation of privacy laws?

Rina Evans · Oct 7, 2014

Yeah, if it's true, it's a very bad thing for user privacy. But am I surprised? No. Everyone and everything is collecting our data these days

kuwisdelu · Oct 7, 2014

Alessandra Kelley said:
I don't know if I am reading this properly. Are there subtleties I am missing here? Is this a reliable source? Is this, as it looks, a bad thing, and possibly in violation of privacy laws?

You're reading it correctly.

Here's another article.

Liosse de Velishaf · Oct 7, 2014

What about version 3? That's the one I have.

benbradley · Oct 8, 2014

Alessandra Kelley said:
...
I don't know if I am reading this properly. Are there subtleties I am missing here? Is this a reliable source? Is this, as it looks, a bad thing, and possibly in violation of privacy laws?

Don't worry about any privacy laws, Adobe is a big enough company that it may only have to pay a fine at most. Thesedays, getting caught is just a cost of doing business.

Rina Evans said:
Yeah, if it's true, it's a very bad thing for user privacy. But am I surprised? No. Everyone and everything is collecting our data these days

I suppose the Sony Rootkit was surprising and shocking. Since then, invasion into your digital devices and personal info by big corporations is just another goatse.

Hapax Legomenon · Oct 9, 2014

Liosse de Velishaf said:
What about version 3? That's the one I have.

2.0 and 3.0 appear to be safe, for anyone who is concerned.

I was under the impression that the "proper way" software did this like iTunes did it -- iTunes is both capable of scanning your entire hard drive for music and of sending information of all your music back to Apple, but only if you give it permission to do so. (then again I am not a programmer so I am not 100% sure if this is really what Apple is doing or not, but that is what they say they do.)

Of particular concerns is libraries. People have right to privacy of what they check out at libraries but pretty much all ebook lending is touched by Adobe in some way these days.

Craig McNeil · Oct 10, 2014

What I found particularly galling was that you give Adobe permission to breach your privacy when you agree to the T&Cs of the program. I read a more technical article about this and the data sent also includes what pages you've read on particular books, how you actually progressed through a book e.g. you read p10 first then skipped to 23 then back to 5. And even worst from a security perspective is that all this data is transmitted in plain text which means that anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge could read it.

Adobe's Digital Editions 4 reportedly scrapes ebook info from users, uploads it to Adobe

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

Rina Evans

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

Liosse de Velishaf

benbradley

It's a doggy dog world

Hapax Legomenon

Craig McNeil

Sitting in the shadows