Privacy concerns over the Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Silk web browser came swiftly on the heels of its unveiling last month. In case you forgot, the Silk web browser will come with the company's Kindle Fire tablet, a 7-inch Android-derived tablet that will ship at an appealing price tag of just $199 in mid-November.

In order to offer faster web browsing than competing platforms, the Amazon Silk browser has a cloud acceleration feature that can predict your next web destination by learning your browsing habits. It was this feature that has left security experts and lawmakers nervous.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has since contacted Amazon to clarify the technical workings of its Silk browser, and released its conclusion. In a nutshell, the EFF has conceded that it is "generally satisfied with the privacy design of Silk." The positive conclusion was largely due to Amazon's confirmation that cloud acceleration can be turned off, and the clarification that secure webpage requests will not be routed through Amazon's server--even with cloud acceleration enabled.

However, the EFF did highlight the storing of URLs, including search queries, as a possible cause of concern. Data stored in Amazon's server may also be sufficient for law enforcement agents to trace a user's identity--which means that users who care about their privacy should just turn cloud acceleration off.

You can read the EFF's response here. Would you disable cloud acceleration if you get a Kindle Fire tablet?

For more on this story:
- check out this article at CNET News
- check out this article at InformationWeek

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