One big difference between Amazon's datamining here and the standard issue is that it's not based on cookies or dependent on what the user opts in or out of. Having Silk caching into their offices is pretty genius, because even Chrome, which Google is constantly trying to get us to use (some features of GoogleDocs are only available through Chrome) doesn't have that much sucking power to call home as much. It's gotten to the point with these things that no one is pretending they're doing it for any other reason. The speed of the Amazon browser due to the caching gets less ink than the data collecting even from Bezos' own words.
I don't know if this bit of news got out of NY, but it was pretty wild catching it on the radio in the car. Sen. Charles Schumer called car tracking and alert company OnStar out for tracking car info long after the owners dropped the service and selling the data. Turns out GM cars, which would come with a free couple of months of the service. would have GPS and other info from the car's computer still tracked after not signing up after the free period, and the fine print buried in the car documents gave them permission to do this and to sell any info to any 3rd party. This is after you said you didn't want the service. Scary stuff. We're getting so used to this that we've allowed it to become standard operating procedure when twenty years ago we would have been horrified.
We assume that when we don't opt in to a procedure we don't get tracked, but it isn't so. We also are told that no one takes personal information but we have only the dataminers to trust on that. I'm not going to assume that Amazon is doing what I like behind the curtain, same as I assume Google isn't. When the data collection is the largest upside for the company (where they make up the bottom line by selling it) , it's different from whether I bought the big toaster or the little one.
Apple knows much more about you, what you search and where you are, than you might realize. They also share those details with their advertising partners. Apple may not see advertising as their primary revenue source as Google does, but they're putting more effort into integrating location features into social apps to entice you and other Apple users into sharing even more travel and search details, which can then be used to build your personal consumer profile to attract more advertisers.
Read this article to see what changed with last years iOS4 update. Apple's efforts to know more about you including location, contacts and search history, and share it with advertisers isn't talked about much.
It doesn't make them evil, or sneaky or overly intrusive. Just be aware they're also in the game of delivering you as a product.
Apple does not track searches...how could they? Your link points to them tracking behaviour via you browsing and interacting with iAds. No kidding! Here i thought Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc... just throw an ad on the screen and that is it.
Amazon is a man-in-the-middle. They get every interaction with the network. Every key press. Every link clicked. Every site visited. Every email. _Everything_. All the time. 365 days a year. There is no way around it other than to not use their device.
Well, apple tracked everywhere I've been driving to and walking so... this can't be any worse.
You mean before they got caught.
I think this is great: an IOS browser that displays finally Flash without hiccups for a COMPLETE browsing experience. No longer would I have to say - "Oh when I get home I will have to view that video or what have you that someone has just sent me."
Do you think Apple would ever allow an Amazon Silk app on our iPads and iPhones?
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did absolutely nothing with the data, unlike Amazon and Google who live on knowing everything you do at all times.
"Got caught" implies they were doing something wrong, not nothing, like they were doing. Google can't "get caught" because they only ever do that sort of thing without people knowing.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did absolutely nothing with the data, unlike Amazon and Google who live on knowing everything you do at all times.
"Got caught" implies they were doing something wrong, not nothing, like they were doing. Google can't "get caught" because they only ever do that sort of thing without people knowing.
"Got caught", "Called up on it"- whatever. Call it what you will but the fact remains that Apple ceased this collecting of user data only once the facts came out. If they weren't doing anything wrong then they wouldn't have terminated that invasion of personal data. I'd like to hear you defend any other corporation that would engage in this practice. What do you think it was then - an accident that Apple knew nothing about?
The performance boost appears to be required because these are low end devices. Even the Fire's dual core CPU is outdated. But tracking users buying patterns and browsing patterns is very valuable. As with Google, we are becoming their product to sell.
Amazon isn't going to sell this bit of competitive advantage to anyone else I wouldn't think. Eh maybe.
FIre's dual core is less outdated than the iPad 1...and my iPad is still reasonably snappy.
Great. Amazon gets to track everything you do on the net. No thanks.
I dont think Amazon cares so much about tracking you as much as they do about controlling what content you see and hear (in relationship to what they can sell you).
Do you think Apple would ever allow an Amazon Silk app on our iPads and iPhones?
Why would Silk be any different then the other browsers they already allow? I just looked and there are approximately 100 browsers available for iOS from the iTunes App store (keyword search: web browser)
Turn this question around.. would Amazon allow the installation of any third party browsers? Refer back to the business model. They sell content. What you hear and see. They don't make money off the Fire HW itself.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did absolutely nothing with the data, unlike Amazon and Google who live on knowing everything you do at all times.
Understanding the business model is key here. A good suspect is someone who has both opportunity AND motivation.
Think about motivation from the point of view of Google, Amazon and Apple business models:
Facebook and, Google primarily make money off your privacy and analytics due to their business model. They leverage it to advertisers.
Amazon is primarily makes money off direct reselling content (what you see and hear). I dont think they resell this knowledge to advertisers (yet). They also make money on direct retail sales using logistics which are optimized for low inventory, low margin, and high volume.
Apple primarily make money off their product (HW or SW). Content is almost break even. The ONLY other retail items they sell are for the purpose of supporting their own products. As for advertising, they only reason they purchased and created iAds is to help developers grow the Apple ecosystem by allowing dev to easily make money from "free apps". iAds framework takes care of passing on leads from their Advertisers relationships to developer, so the dev does not have to. To my knowledge Apple does not make any profit from Advertisers. Hopefully they do just enough to break even.
Therefore, I can not see what motivation Apple has need to track you other for their own product needs for features like "Find My iPhone". What would their motivation be for collection private info about you without your knowledge? They dont sell it to my knowledge. If you think otherwise, I would like to see proof that Apple has a business around selling privacy info and analytics about you.
NOTE: by design the Location Based Services API provided by iOS always asks the user if you want to allow access to your location. Apps can NOT get to your location without getting approval from the user. How do you explain this motivation in the Apple design if they were not concerned about your privacy?
before you answer please watch these videos in reference to Apple's stance an privacy and advertising.
Fine. they have an estimated gross profit margin of 19$ per unit.
Better?
here I always thought that:
gross was the summation of multiple things before deductions.
margin was the net between the revenue - expenses.
so gross margin would be the summation of all the revenues minus the summation of all the expenses.
all we are debating here is the unit margin. We don't know gross anything at this point.
However, the gross margin on the product (profit on just the product line) depends on how many they make vs how many they sell (minus how many remain and how many are returned)
For example,
If they cost $180 to make and they sell them for $200 then the unit margin is $20. Lets say they build 100,000 units and only sell 90% of them.
The gross revenue would be 0.9 * 100,000 * $200 = $18 million.
The gross investment @ $180/unit would be 100,000 * 180 = $18 million (notice its the same number as revenue above). think about this.
Does this mean they break even for selling 90% of the units? No! its worse then that.
The unsold inventory of 10% would yield 0.1 * 100,000 * $180/unit investment = negative $1.8 million.
This means they must have a fire sale to move these. For each unit they sell for less then $180 (cost) they will lose money and affect their bottom line negatively.
Dont forget about returns (not factored in here).. there is almost no money here to refurb the units. repackage, etc.
This is why its always safer entering a market with an expensive high margin product. For example, the original iPhone was priced at $599 + contract. It was lower risk because they didnt know what the take would be. Once they started seeing that it was selling they dropped the price and made more. You always want to go into a new market with a high margin, low volume product. Its less risky.
Its going to get interesting. Amazon will have lots of competitors at the $199 price point. Its not going to be easy. They need to sell every single one they have made. If they made too many, they lose their shirt. If they made too few, they wont affect market share. The holiday season is approaching and its a crap shoot what the competition like Asus, MSI, Nook, Pan Digital is going to do. Amazon is not a SW or a HW design house. Its all contracted out. Its all speculation how successful it will be and if it stinks, the returns will kill them. Very very risky indeed. Their ODM, Quanta, may be the only one making money in the end on the Fire.
This is the danger of low margin sales an why OEMs like HP are getting out of the PC business, while their ODMs like Inventec, Quanta and Foxconn get rich. Its just too dangerous and not worth it. For Amazon, this is all about the profit on the backend. Selling content and if the content does not sell well they are up a creek.
btw, today there was a post about the tear down BOM cost and it had Amazon taking a loss of $10/unit.
Comments
I don't know if this bit of news got out of NY, but it was pretty wild catching it on the radio in the car. Sen. Charles Schumer called car tracking and alert company OnStar out for tracking car info long after the owners dropped the service and selling the data. Turns out GM cars, which would come with a free couple of months of the service. would have GPS and other info from the car's computer still tracked after not signing up after the free period, and the fine print buried in the car documents gave them permission to do this and to sell any info to any 3rd party. This is after you said you didn't want the service. Scary stuff. We're getting so used to this that we've allowed it to become standard operating procedure when twenty years ago we would have been horrified.
We assume that when we don't opt in to a procedure we don't get tracked, but it isn't so. We also are told that no one takes personal information but we have only the dataminers to trust on that. I'm not going to assume that Amazon is doing what I like behind the curtain, same as I assume Google isn't. When the data collection is the largest upside for the company (where they make up the bottom line by selling it) , it's different from whether I bought the big toaster or the little one.
Apple knows much more about you, what you search and where you are, than you might realize. They also share those details with their advertising partners. Apple may not see advertising as their primary revenue source as Google does, but they're putting more effort into integrating location features into social apps to entice you and other Apple users into sharing even more travel and search details, which can then be used to build your personal consumer profile to attract more advertisers.
Read this article to see what changed with last years iOS4 update. Apple's efforts to know more about you including location, contacts and search history, and share it with advertisers isn't talked about much.
It doesn't make them evil, or sneaky or overly intrusive. Just be aware they're also in the game of delivering you as a product.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/sec...cy-policy/3951
Apple does not track searches...how could they? Your link points to them tracking behaviour via you browsing and interacting with iAds. No kidding! Here i thought Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc... just throw an ad on the screen and that is it.
Amazon is a man-in-the-middle. They get every interaction with the network. Every key press. Every link clicked. Every site visited. Every email. _Everything_. All the time. 365 days a year. There is no way around it other than to not use their device.
Well, apple tracked everywhere I've been driving to and walking so... this can't be any worse.
You mean before they got caught.
I think this is great: an IOS browser that displays finally Flash without hiccups for a COMPLETE browsing experience. No longer would I have to say - "Oh when I get home I will have to view that video or what have you that someone has just sent me."
Do you think Apple would ever allow an Amazon Silk app on our iPads and iPhones?
You mean before they got caught.
(filler)
(filler)
http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2...y&type=article
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z-WD...e_gdata_player
http://m.guardian.co.uk/technology/2...y&type=article
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z-WD...e_gdata_player
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did absolutely nothing with the data, unlike Amazon and Google who live on knowing everything you do at all times.
"Got caught" implies they were doing something wrong, not nothing, like they were doing. Google can't "get caught" because they only ever do that sort of thing without people knowing.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did absolutely nothing with the data, unlike Amazon and Google who live on knowing everything you do at all times.
"Got caught" implies they were doing something wrong, not nothing, like they were doing. Google can't "get caught" because they only ever do that sort of thing without people knowing.
"Got caught", "Called up on it"- whatever. Call it what you will but the fact remains that Apple ceased this collecting of user data only once the facts came out. If they weren't doing anything wrong then they wouldn't have terminated that invasion of personal data. I'd like to hear you defend any other corporation that would engage in this practice. What do you think it was then - an accident that Apple knew nothing about?
The performance boost appears to be required because these are low end devices. Even the Fire's dual core CPU is outdated. But tracking users buying patterns and browsing patterns is very valuable. As with Google, we are becoming their product to sell.
Amazon isn't going to sell this bit of competitive advantage to anyone else I wouldn't think. Eh maybe.
FIre's dual core is less outdated than the iPad 1...and my iPad is still reasonably snappy.
Great. Amazon gets to track everything you do on the net. No thanks.
I dont think Amazon cares so much about tracking you as much as they do about controlling what content you see and hear (in relationship to what they can sell you).
Do you think Apple would ever allow an Amazon Silk app on our iPads and iPhones?
Why would Silk be any different then the other browsers they already allow? I just looked and there are approximately 100 browsers available for iOS from the iTunes App store (keyword search: web browser)
Turn this question around.. would Amazon allow the installation of any third party browsers? Refer back to the business model. They sell content. What you hear and see. They don't make money off the Fire HW itself.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. They did absolutely nothing with the data, unlike Amazon and Google who live on knowing everything you do at all times.
Understanding the business model is key here. A good suspect is someone who has both opportunity AND motivation.
Think about motivation from the point of view of Google, Amazon and Apple business models:
Facebook and, Google primarily make money off your privacy and analytics due to their business model. They leverage it to advertisers.
Amazon is primarily makes money off direct reselling content (what you see and hear). I dont think they resell this knowledge to advertisers (yet). They also make money on direct retail sales using logistics which are optimized for low inventory, low margin, and high volume.
Apple primarily make money off their product (HW or SW). Content is almost break even. The ONLY other retail items they sell are for the purpose of supporting their own products. As for advertising, they only reason they purchased and created iAds is to help developers grow the Apple ecosystem by allowing dev to easily make money from "free apps". iAds framework takes care of passing on leads from their Advertisers relationships to developer, so the dev does not have to. To my knowledge Apple does not make any profit from Advertisers. Hopefully they do just enough to break even.
Therefore, I can not see what motivation Apple has need to track you other for their own product needs for features like "Find My iPhone". What would their motivation be for collection private info about you without your knowledge? They dont sell it to my knowledge. If you think otherwise, I would like to see proof that Apple has a business around selling privacy info and analytics about you.
NOTE: by design the Location Based Services API provided by iOS always asks the user if you want to allow access to your location. Apps can NOT get to your location without getting approval from the user. How do you explain this motivation in the Apple design if they were not concerned about your privacy?
before you answer please watch these videos in reference to Apple's stance an privacy and advertising.
Steve Jobs talks about privacy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39iKLwlUqBo
Steve Jobs talks about purpose of iAds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7WVt63S49s
Fine. they have an estimated gross profit margin of 19$ per unit.
Better?
here I always thought that:
gross was the summation of multiple things before deductions.
margin was the net between the revenue - expenses.
so gross margin would be the summation of all the revenues minus the summation of all the expenses.
all we are debating here is the unit margin. We don't know gross anything at this point.
However, the gross margin on the product (profit on just the product line) depends on how many they make vs how many they sell (minus how many remain and how many are returned)
For example,
If they cost $180 to make and they sell them for $200 then the unit margin is $20. Lets say they build 100,000 units and only sell 90% of them.
The gross revenue would be 0.9 * 100,000 * $200 = $18 million.
The gross investment @ $180/unit would be 100,000 * 180 = $18 million (notice its the same number as revenue above). think about this.
Does this mean they break even for selling 90% of the units? No! its worse then that.
The unsold inventory of 10% would yield 0.1 * 100,000 * $180/unit investment = negative $1.8 million.
This means they must have a fire sale to move these. For each unit they sell for less then $180 (cost) they will lose money and affect their bottom line negatively.
Dont forget about returns (not factored in here).. there is almost no money here to refurb the units. repackage, etc.
This is why its always safer entering a market with an expensive high margin product. For example, the original iPhone was priced at $599 + contract. It was lower risk because they didnt know what the take would be. Once they started seeing that it was selling they dropped the price and made more. You always want to go into a new market with a high margin, low volume product. Its less risky.
Its going to get interesting. Amazon will have lots of competitors at the $199 price point. Its not going to be easy. They need to sell every single one they have made. If they made too many, they lose their shirt. If they made too few, they wont affect market share. The holiday season is approaching and its a crap shoot what the competition like Asus, MSI, Nook, Pan Digital is going to do. Amazon is not a SW or a HW design house. Its all contracted out. Its all speculation how successful it will be and if it stinks, the returns will kill them. Very very risky indeed. Their ODM, Quanta, may be the only one making money in the end on the Fire.
This is the danger of low margin sales an why OEMs like HP are getting out of the PC business, while their ODMs like Inventec, Quanta and Foxconn get rich. Its just too dangerous and not worth it. For Amazon, this is all about the profit on the backend. Selling content and if the content does not sell well they are up a creek.
btw, today there was a post about the tear down BOM cost and it had Amazon taking a loss of $10/unit.