Who knows more about you? Amazon, or Google?

As my readers may know, I like the notes and highlights feature of the Kindle, and I like the latest utility they provide, letting us view a consolidated listing of notes and highlights on a webpage.  I also like that if you have multiple “kindle-enabled” readers (Kindles, iPhones, etc) the whispernet will autosync you to the latest place you have read in your book.  The convenience is remarkable, being read a book in one device, read for a while, and then when you decide to switch to the other device, it asks if you want to go to the latest point read.  No more hunting and guessing.  Great!

At least, I thought it was.  Now I am not one to go all crazy over conspiracy theories and the like.  Personally, I like my aluminum foil wrapping leftovers, not as a hat.  But it occurred to me that Amazon is not only gathering information about our buying patterns (our actual buying patterns, and not simply what sites we look at or ads we see), but they are  now getting something more.  Amazon now is learning what we read, and how fast we read it. (Or perhaps whether we actually read them, or finish them?) But Amazon is essentially capable of gathering information on what we think is important by what we highlight, and what we think and believe by any notes we may write.

In my mind this actually puts them a step ahead of Google.

Will Amazon do anything with this?  Probably not.  But think about it–what does it say about you?  This is creating a “virtual you” that can be analyzed.  Tie this with the Google information, and what a picture it becomes.

Recently a guest on TWIT said that not only is this a virtual you, but it is a virtual you that knows more about you than you do.  It’s memory of what you read, highlight, and type is “perfect.”  Can you say that about yourself?

Would you want to learn about yourself?  Or would you (almost) be afraid to know?