Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Cited By FTC For Deceptive Practices
target writes: "An article from salon reports that the FTC has ruled that amazon and its subsidiary alexa 'probably deceived customers' by passing on to the compaines personal information. Not that they're going to do anything but point it out, of course." Note that this is about different aspects of Amazon's privacy policy than reported in this story a few days ago, where the powers that be decided that removing 'opt-out' choices, among other things, did not deceive customers.
When I started getting spam (not from Amazon) to an email address I *only* use with Amazon, I couldn't believe it. Unfortunately, all it's done is make it so that I don't believe anyone's privacy policy anymore. After all, if Amazon can just all of a sudden decide to sell my info, so can anyone else. I pretty much use a different email address everywhere I sign up for anything now. That way, if they do the same thing, ~blip~ Right into Procmail it goes.
It's just another chilling reminder that any kind of contract isn't worth much more than the paper (the screen) it's printed on if someone with a lot of money wants to break it and some little person like me doesn't have the resources to fight it.
Thanks, Amazon, for adding to the restoral of my faith in humanity.
Hopefully common sense will one day prevail when it comes to people purchasing things online, and when using programs created by those companies you've made the purchases from.
When one goes to buy things online, your often going to see something like a radio button asking whether you want something in the future, or would like to subscribe to, or other option, and this is no different then when you go into department stores, and the cashier asks if you'd like to sign up for another credit card, or would like to receive X_OTHER information via mail, etc.
Marketing companies, and marketing departments try to use the data for obvious reasons, to sell you more products, but at times they also use that data to try to predict trends in what to sell next, or what to add. However the differences when you buy online, and in person is, in person you can look someone dead in the eye and say no, but on the net you really have little control.
Spyware programs which claim never to use people information for the company's personal gain are almost always a sham, and I feel this way after working with a company who developed a product they claimed wasn't spyware, but yet tracked when the user logged in with the program, what the person purchsed, etc., when I asked my bosses about it, it was amusing to see the obscurity they placed behind tracking information.
Lets be realistic here, using a program by a company which sells goods, is going to by some means monitor something, and you should be aware that no matter what is said, that information can be tracked to you no matter what the company says, either by a username, trends in shopping, or even IP addresses, and that's the bottom line any way you slice it. How else do you expect them to make money?
On a side note, after sleeping 3 hours within the past 48, I wonder if I make any sense!@
Want Root?
There is a question of "the ability to do something" and "the will to do something"
I don't want to sound pro-Microsoft (I'm not) but the reality is that as a near monopolist in several areas of software, the second largest employer in Washington State, and (need I mention) a generous campaign contributor, the Fed will walk on eggs when coming up with any remedies to control Our Friends In Redmond.
Once you get past the breathless hype of the New Economy, Amazon is expendable. Jeff Bezos could be swatted out of existence, and the loss of every single job at Amazon would result in a small change in the unemplyment rate of Greater Seattle, and a zero change in any meaningful national economic statistics related to employment, GDP, the value of the NASDAQ, or any other indicator you care to fish up.
Who knows, without an Amazon.com to surf to, office productivity might even rise a few ticks.
Attachmate (a privately-held middish-to-big Seattle software firm you've probably never heard of) puts more money into the economy than Amazon.
The FTCs lack of action does not indicate the goverment does not have the means. They certainly do. They just don't have the desire.
cynically yrs,
j.
Kinda like us Slashdot posters deceiving other readers into thinking we actually READ the articles?
Heh.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
how is this different from any other marketing information gathering device (for sale databases, grocery store name here cards, etc) everyone is watching what their buyers are purchasing.. Most grocery stores don't tell you that they are going to do that when you sign up for their "savings cards", how is what Amazon doing any different?
In grocery store discount cards, you are selling your privacy. You choose to let them track what you buy, when, in what quantities, with what other products, etc. in return for savings.
The stores are required by law to say what they are going to do. It's in the fine print of the application -- just most people don't read the fine print, or understand what it means.
Amazon, however collected information "secretly", without the consent of the customers and offering no such savings in return for such consent.
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If you give anything of value to a coorperation,no matter what they say, you are guaranteed* to be screwed in the fine print. If there is an avenue to make money, it will be exploited.
: ... ...
from amazon's privacy terms
Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores or assets. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets
?WTF?
*this is not a guarantee