Congressmen Worried About Amazon Silk Privacy Issues

suraj.sun sends this quote from an article at Ars: "Congress is trying to wrap its collective head around Amazon's new Silk Web browser. At a privacy hearing yesterday, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) expressed outrage at the way Silk's 'split' design can funnel all user browsing data through Amazon's backend servers. 'My staff yesterday told me that one of our leading Internet companies, Amazon, is going to create their own server and their own system and they're going to force everybody that uses Amazon to go through their server and they're going to collect all this information on each person who does that without that person's knowledge. Enough is enough.' Today came a similar shot from the other side of the aisle, with Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) dashing off a letter (PDF) to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos about the same privacy concerns. 'Consumers may buy the new Kindle Fire to read 1984, but they may not realize that the tablet's "Big Browser" may be watching their every keystroke when they are online,' Markey said in a statement."

Uh huh

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

'My staff yesterday told me that one of our leading Internet companies, Amazon, is going to create their own server and their own system and they're going to force everybody that uses Amazon to go through their server and they're going to collect all this information on each person who does that without that person's knowledge. Enough is enough.'

Translation for those who don't speak Congress-critter or those who live in other countries:
"One of Amazon's competitors has decided to donate to my re-election campaign. A study group our pollster ran shows that we might get some TV time bitching about 'privacy concerns' hahahaha."

Re:turn it off

[AngryDeuce]

Plus all the plugins you need to have installed to make sure they won't just track you anyway. I wouldn't mind so much if it was a permanent, once and for all opt-out, but it seems like more and more businesses just update something every few months and turn the shit right back on again, since the default for everything anymore is "PRIVACY IS ANTI-AMERICAN, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO HIDE?"

Um -- PATRIOT act anyone?

[wealthychef]

If Congress is concerned about privacy, maybe they should stop warrantless wiretapping and war by executive fiat. Just a thought.

Re:If this is an issue...

[AngryDeuce]

I have a sneaking suspicion that this has a lot less to do with privacy, and a lot more to do with the sales tax fight. Guess they'd better add a few more zeros to their "lobbying" budget. Either that or they're not honoring the unwritten "matching donations" rule that requires Big Business to pay off both parties equally.

equines vs. pachyderms

[tverbeek]

I'm showing my partisan bias here, but I think it's telling the Republican gave us the not-quite-calling-it-tubes comment that "they're going to force everybody that uses Amazon to go through their server", and the Democrat gave us the literary word-play of "Big Browser".

nothing compared to the ISPs

[optimism]

Yes...Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, etc can log your keystrokes and behaviors through their servers and their widespread affiliates.

But this is nothing compared to your ISP. Comcast, AT&T, Roadrunner, etc have access to EVERYTHING their customers do on their Internet connections (minus a fractional percentage of encrypted traffic, of course).

Funny that most folks seem to ignore this elephant in the room.

Re:If this is an issue...

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh - yeah, I think they have bigger fish to fry in congress. But, this really is a congressional issue. Privacy has been encroached on for a couple of decades now. Especially with the un-Patriot act, and all the storms in teacups with the "terrorists". Yes, it's time for congress to address the issue of privacy for private citizens. Facebook, Amazon, nor any other corporation should be collecting information on citizens of the United States. (note the use of the word "citizen", rather than "consumer")