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Online Purchases Can Give You Away

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-internet-never-forgets-my-birthday dept.

Abhishek writes "New Scientist reports that Retailers could guess your age, sex, birthday and wedding anniversary simply from the types of gifts purchased for you online and their timing, according to a patent granted to online retail giant, Amazon. The information could be used to remind your loved ones of an impending special occasion and offer gift suggestions. Currently Amazon makes personalised suggestions to customers based on previous purchases by that customer, previous web pages browsed and comparisons between customers who have bought similar products. But the company may vastly increase its predictive capability in the future."

2 of 243 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I guess we will all strive to be like Data. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Wow, you are a giant nerd. A flaming nerd.

  2. Re:You can waste this time guessing.. by drsquare · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    A: Have a girlfriend who is relatively attractive (No, no pictures for you ;) )

    Then we'll have to assume she's 250lbs and cross-eyed. If she really was attractive you would have no problem showing pictures of her.

    4. (and most important) Just be yourself.

    Wow, what useful advice...Not. Being yourself to people here means sitting in front of the computer masturbating to downloaded anime films of tentacle rape. People on this website have really crap personalities, being themselves would lead to complete and utter failure. So no change really.

    I know this is a bit of a ramble and majorly O/T, but hey, I smell "Informative".

    I smell 'patronising karma-whore'.