Slashdot Mirror
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."
The patent describes software that automatically guesses when a gift is being purchased by extracting key words such as "birthday" or "anniversary" from an attached message. It might also note details such as the fact that the buyer has asked it to be gift wrapped or that the recipient address is different from the purchaser address, according to the patent, which was granted on 8 March.
And people screamed over Google's ads with Gmail.
Most worrying is that the patent appears to target children, says Karen Coyle of the public interest alliance Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility in Berkeley, California.
Isn't their a law regarding this? Something about consent from a parent if the child is 13 or younger?
According to Amazon spokesperson Patty Smith, based in Seattle, Washington, these worries are "a little premature and a bit speculative". She adds that the company has no plans to implement the technology at present.
For now.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Safeway has been doing this for years. Some friends of ours got a card in the mail shortly after they had a baby, congratulating them on their new addition, and offering them these fine baby products, available at Safeway. A year later they got a "happy birthday" card for the baby with some coupons and such.
Do not read this sig.
Why doesn't Amazon just create a new service where user can enter the birthday and anniversaries of their loved one. I'm sure people who always forget important date will use it. You could also extends that to make suggestion based on past gift purchased for those people. My point is why do they want to do this the sneaky way when you can simply ask user for it.
I knew in my head this was the first thing someone would reply with.
;) )
Yes it is possible to
A: Have a girlfriend who is relatively attractive (No, no pictures for you
B: Be the school's 'techie'
C: Regularly visit Slashdot and have positive Karma!
My quick advices:
1. Find some common ground that doesnt involve tech (unless you find a tech-girl to snag, but there's bound to be competition). Me and my g/f met at the movie theatre where we both used to work. Free movies allowed us time to discover eachother and provided a really cheap date, considering we both snuck in concessions...
2. Don't be afraid to flaunt your tech just a little. Talking in Java is a bad idea, but being a little helpful once in a while really works charms. If your potential interest has a Bluetooth phone, send them a quick "Lookin good today" address card followed by a hug once she gets the puzzled look on her face. Something to that effect, if used sparsely, is a real lady-killer.
3. Proper hygiene is realllllly important. I used to be dirty and smelly, but once I started showering regularly and using cologne, my mate was hooked.
4. (and most important) Just be yourself. Most male geeks have the concentrated puzzle-solving look on their eyes when learning a new language or tackling a problem. My g/f finds that incredibly cute.
I know this is a bit of a ramble and majorly O/T, but hey, I smell "Informative".
--
Help a poor high-schooler?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you read the article a little deeper, the general idea is that the software system described is used to guess the purchasing habits of friends and family based on stereotypes derived from information gathered from these messages.
This is no different than someone assuming that if you are some random black guy who happens to like rap music that if you send a message to another friend with the keyword "rap" that it assumes that the recipient of that message must also like rap music.
When marketroids are allowed to segment human beings into every imaginable stereotypical group they can think of, it may be useful for making those advertising dollars a little more efficient, but the cost to society is huge in that people stop sharing similarities as they are encouraged to go retreat to their own little islands of likeminded thinkers.
It is almost like politics in America right now, where pollsters and political pundits have managed to reprogram much of the American electorate into foolishly believing that they are part of some narrowly defined group like the "religious right", or "extreme left" or that they are a "Reagan Republican" or a "NASCAR Dad".
So, instead of society being encouraged to try to create art, ideas, products, services, government programs, etc. which try to serve the public good in a general way, the only thing you see nowadays is ridiculous levels of customization in everything around us that divide people rather than unite them.
It is like people can now go to whatever news outlet they want whether it be the Communist Broadcasting Service or Fox News not to get an objective view on what goes on around the world, but rather to hear news with a distinct political spin to make themselves feel better about "being right" when it comes to their position on any given issue.
This is just another step in the corporatization of America where people voluntarily give up their freedom and rational minds by being fooled into believing that allowing corporations to create a virtual caste system through modern marketing methods is actually a good thing.
I had a similar experience with HP. Somehow I got subscribed to a newsletter from visiting their website. It was mostly worthless, but I'd scan them every once in a while to keep up with their products and things.
After a time the newsletter was re-vamped, and I got something saying they would now be suggesting articles and things to based on my "preferences". Somehow I remember it was an exciting new HP AI technology they were testing, and HP would be offering it to their business customers.
At first, the suggested articles weren't very "personalized" and wading through a bunch of suggested articles that seemed to have nothing to do with my interests made me want to unsubscribe.
All of a sudden, though, I began getting suggested articles like "Don't you think Linux sucks? Click here to read more" that would actually link to articles on the HP website talking about how Windows had a better ROI or something. Although the articles were real, the "suggestions" that pointed to the articles were obviously computer generated or pieced together from a list of pre-generated phrases.
Needless to say, I've since unsubscribed to this most unhelpful service. I'd like to take this opportunity to give an obligatory "fuck you, Carly".
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I personally don't want my potential anniversary date posted online
Of all the pieces of information that were listed, I would think this would be the least controversial. After all, a wedding is a public event, and your anniversary is part of the public record.
Incidently, in most states your social security number is right there on your marriage license and is also part of the public record. So if you think it's a big deal for someone to get your SSN, think again.
My dot-com experience was with a company that administers a loyalty program. We would collect data from all of our partner businesses, and attach them to persons using the credit card numbers.
From there we had simple heuristics to look for paterns (activity at a catering establishment and a purchase at a bridal shop?) and sell these profiles back to partner businesses for targeted advertisement.
Outside of only paying in cash, and never using your legitimate information except where absolutely essential, I can't see much way to avoid it. Way things are going, it'll only get worse unless we enact legislation to prohibit that kind of activity.
I usually had 2 different pairs of gold earrings, at least 4 kitchen appliances (the most obscure you could think of - stuff like spice grinders and $250 coffee makers), and a power tool (usually a router or circular saw). They were all SO random that we were making drinking bets and stuff on what would come up next.
I see that Amazon seems to have discontinued that service... wonder why.
I think we're all missing something important, here: It's a patent.
This means that ONLY Amazon is allowed to ruthlessly invade your privacy.
So all you have to do is not shop at Amazon and you'll be safe from the data miners forever!
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
They probably got your info from the phone company. They teleco's sell all the info they have on you to anyone with the bucks. I always get my phone number listed in the name of an imaginary roommate (because it is free versus paying for an unlisted number which is not really all that unlisted) and you would be surprised all the weird stuff my imaginary friends have received in the mail over the years.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I suspect this would fall foul on the European data protection laws. If I have no business relationship with (say) Amazon, they have no right to collect my personal information. The fact that someone else buys a thing for me does no give *my* consent to keep info on me, to spam me, or to inform other people about my private life, like anniversaries.
In Murphy We Turst