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Data Mining Amazon.com Wish Lists

Posted by Zonk on from the i-know-what-you-read dept.

Dr. Webster writes "In his article "Data Mining 101: Finding Subversives with Amazon Wishlists," Tom Owad of Applefritter outlines a way in which one could build detailed personal profiles of hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens in a matter of hours. Reading habits, personal tastes and even political party affiliation could be inferred from the results, and through the use of Yahoo! People and Google Maps, one could even map out geographically where people with certain interests or affiliations live, down to their address. Most surprisingly, the process of doing this is completely legal, and doesn't even violate Amazon's Conditions of Use."

2 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mining voluntary information on a public websit by Skidge · · Score: 3, Informative

    Next time you see a recommendation like that, you can click the "Why was I recommended this?" link under it and then uncheck the "Use this for recommendations" checkbox by the items that you don't want to be used as sources for your recommendations. Alternatively, you can go into "Your Store" through the tabs at the top and then go to the Improve Your Recommendations section and find the items and uncheck the same checkbox.

  2. They have this already! by Derling+Whirvish · · Score: 3, Informative
    I've always wondered why Amazon didn't take a more 'social networking' approach to this since:
    a) I only want to share my wish list with people I trust;
    b) I only want to share certain sublists with certain people.

    They do! Go to "edit wishlist" and the second item after you name the list is "This list will be viweable by:" and it gives three choices: "Anyone who searches for me," "Only people I have invited with the 'Share this list' feature," or "Only me."