Kindle Readers: Amazon is watching!

Just in time for Choose Privacy Week comes this article in the Christian Science Monitor about a new service from Amazon that shows what passages from Kindle books are most often highlighted.

You can even search to see what is the most highlighted passage on a certain topic.

Since the population of Kindle users is still pretty small, I can't see exactly what the purpose of this service is, except as a really great reminder that whatever you do online, or connected to an Internet device, is being tracked and recorded.

The top two highlighted passages on privacy?
“Never listen to a phone call that isn’t meant for you. Never read a letter that isn’t meant for you. Never pay attention to a comment that isn’t meant for you. Never violate people’s privacy. You will save yourself a great deal of anguish. You might not understand this now, but you will later on.” A quote from Joseph Kennedy to Ted Kennedy published in True Compass, and highlighted by 84 Kindle users,

and, "The only hope for social networking sites from a business point of view is for a magic formula to appear in which some method of violating privacy and dignity becomes acceptable" from You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier, highlighted by 28 Kindle users.