If Amazon Know Who You Are, Start Getting Worried.
Following a link in The Register , I arrived at this story in SeattlePi.Com . Basically Amazon have filed for a patent on a particular way of gathering extra user data, to add to that which they hold themselves. The Patent Application details how it could compile data from customers to create a profile of products that a person might want to buy. It is difficult to see how much further this goes than the information Amazon holds on their users already.
It would appear that they are mining various other public data bases, and adding to what they hold from their own site. Such a database would include the gender, date of birth, interests, occupation, education, income level, residence, race and ethnicity of customers for Amazon's "gift clustering" program.
The database, which would combine information disclosed voluntarily by customers with facts gleaned from public databases, conceivably would give Amazon a larger or more detailed profile of its customers than any other retailer.The Seattle-based company, with 59 million active customers, said it has no immediate plan to implement such a program. Its ability to do so emerged in a detailed patent application with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, disclosed Thursday.
As we have seen from the Aol saga, it is quite scary what companies like Aol, Google, Amazon, etc hold on their users. It is not surprising that Amazon want to add to that data. Maybe I had better shop somewhere else.
Data protection Act
I wonder where we stand on this. In the UK the rights state that you are able to request full information about data stored about you, I wonder if that extends to you and your IP address? It would certainly make for an interesting experiment across some of these 'data collectors'.
Wifi Freedom
That's why you need to use your neighbors unprotected wifi router when you surf porn or look up sites on how to make bombs so they think your neighbor is the pyrotechnic pervert and not you.
Wifi freedom
They keep coming and taking my neighbours away. I swear, I go through more neighbours that way.....
I wonder where we stand on
This current administration has shown little value for the privacy of its citizens. I would imagine that Amazon would have free reign to mine all they want.
The only thing that
The only thing that surprises me is that people are surprised that big companies like Amazon collect information about their consumers.