Adobe announced that starting Thursday, October 23, all information collected from users of its “Digital Editions” ebook reading software is encrypted when sent to its servers.
The application collects data in order to comply with DRM (digital rights management) policies that protect copyright holders against piracy.
“Adobe uses information collected about the eBook you have opened in Adobe Digital Editions to confirm that it is being displayed in accordance with the type of DRM license that accompanies that eBook. The type of license is determined by the eBook provider,” the company states.
The company explains the purpose of the information it collects
Earlier this month, it was discovered that the program would collect data about books and send it to one of its servers, called adelogs.adobe.com.
Nate Hoffelder of the blog “The Digital Reader” said that evidence was found that Digital Editions 4 scanned the storage drive for other books and “shared” the data with Adobe.
However, this was only the tip of the iceberg, because analysis at Adelog revealed that information was being sent in an insecure manner, allowing access to third parties.
In an official announcement, Adobe revealed the type of information it extracts from Digital Editions users, also explaining what its use is.
In addition to the data required for user and device authentication and identification, the company also retrieves the IP address at the time of purchase of an ebook, records the duration of reading the text, the size of the ebook read, as well as the data included by the ebook providers.
Regarding reading duration, “this information may be collected to facilitate limited pricing models entered into between eBook providers, such as publishers and distributors,” Adobe’s announcement states.
The company explains that under some models, publishers can charge libraries for lending an ebook to an individual from the time of loan or from the time the reader actually picks up the book and reads it.
The HTTPS protocol is now used to transmit data
An extremely important piece of information was announced by Adobe. The information received from the user is now sent over a secure connection. This eliminates the risk of data being intercepted by third parties.
Adobe advises that none of the information collected is personal and that it may share some of it with ebook providers.
