E-books: E-books can tell about readers’ preferences

In book publishing the consumer quality of the product is often hard to determine and traditionally it is evaluated by sales figures and reviews.

According to the Association of American Publishers, in the USA in the first quarter of 2012 the sales results of e-books sector were 282 million dollars against 230 million dollars of printed editions.

E-books can significantly supplement sales statistics - now you can learn not only what people read, but also how they do it: if they give up reading a book on the third page, if they pass an "Introduction", or they carefully learn it, where they make bookmarks, which thoughts they consider as the most interesting.

Now you can easily keep track of how long this or that book is read, which search requests are made to find interested works. Also, some e-books may record how many times a user has opened an application, when he/she has closed it. Sellers and some publishers are beginning to analyze the data, obtaining unique information about the relationship between a human-being and the book.

Users sign an agreement allowing the company to store on their servers the data from the device, including the last read page and bookmarks.

The protection of private information is no less important. Thus in California this year the law on confidentiality of reading, which restricts the transfer of information collected by electronic books was implemented. Now, to claim from booksellers the data about the users, the law enforcement agencies will need court order.