Is it creepy that Amazon is tracking
most-highlighted Kindle passages?

Tracking bestselling books tells us about the reading habits, or at least buying habits, of the American public. But is there anything we can learn from tracking what information people consider important in those books?

Business management website Bnet worried  that publishing such information could erode consumer trust. Amazon notes on its website that it doesn’t show which customers made the highlights.

I do find the idea that such information is being tracked post-purchase a little odd, almost as if the supermarkets tracking my food-buying habits were also measuring whether I made omelets or scrambles once I got my eggs home. But I also admit to being curious about just what the information means. In my life, highlighting was restricted to academics, useful mainly for biology notes. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to underline a passage from a novel or a general-interest read.