Online Purchases Can Give You Away

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."

Comments

Amazing.

[bigtallmofo]

Combine this with Geo-Targeting and it's amazing to know what web sites can find out about you without your consent.

It's like an involuntary a/s/l check from web sites you visit.

Previous art exists

[houghi]

The patent describes software that automatically guesses ...

I got birthdaycards from several companies who also guessed my birthday by looking in the database. Also some emails from companies that did the same.