Data Mining Amazon.com Wish Lists

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."

Comments

Re:This is not a story. This is not news that matt

[Reverend Darkness]

Actually, if you had read the article, you would have seen that Mr. Owad does not reference "invasion of privacy" at all. What he does do is help people understand how information they share online can be used to create a general profile, and even to link them to others. The point of the article is to educate people. But, like others, you were probably just going on the snippet... I mean, why read the whole story when you can see the headlines via RSS, right?

Point of the article

[terradyn]

Most of the comments seem to be along the lines of: "What use is it to mine wishlists?" You're missing the point of the article. His main idea is from this section of the article:

This is what's possible with publicly available information, but imagine if one had access to Amazon's entire database - which still contains every sale dating back to 1999 by the way. Under Section 251 of the Patriot Act, the FBI can require Amazon to turn over its records, without probable cause, for an "authorized investigation . . . to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." Amazon is forbidden to disclose that they have turned over any records, so that you would never know that the government is keeping records of your book purchases. And obviously it is quite simple to crossreference this info with data available in other databases. On a final note, the FBI is now hiring computer scientists to implement a project that sounds very similar to what I just did.

Most subversive anarchists...

[CupBeEmpty]

...that I know freely subscribe to Amazon.com wish lists. They are like "lets overthrow the government that wants to jail us" but they are also all over "Lets let everyone know how we feel about corparations and the government by making wish lists that not only incriminate us but play into the hands of the very corporate droogs we hate... makes sense right." Anyone thinking they will get useful information about truly dangerous groups from Google Maps or Amazon Wish Lists needs to take a breather and sit down for a minute.

Just to point out

[TubeSteak]

It is one thing to 'mine' information from Amazon, it is another thing entirely, to mine useful information.

Even his crude filtering techniques can yield worthwhile leads for police/FBI. He says that the first result for bible is "The Cannabis Grow Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing Marijuana for Recreational and Medical Use".

Is it so hard to imagine that a certain fraction of people with that book on their wishlist may either be growing weed, or have it in their possesion? Or that a percentage of people 'wishing' for the Improvised Munitions Handbook (printed by our favorite Uncle Sam @ the DoD) aren't chemists or demolitionists?

/doesn't have an Amazon wishlist and never will

Re:WTF is wrong with you?

[typical]

Very simple principle. Lots of data is individually acceptable, but when compiled or processed, is unacceptable.

For example, say you maintain a Slashdot identity that you don't link to your real name. While no one post of yours may be sufficient to tie your identity to your name, the sum total may be sufficient.

Or security cameras. Most people don't worry about *one* security camera, but a lot of people get concerned when they are constantly being monitored by cameras which are tied together by computer to monitor where they go each day.