New Super-sized Customer Database for Amazon?

dtjohnson writes "Amazon.com has applied for a patent to create an online customer database which would allegedly contain 'massive amounts of intimate information about its millions of shoppers, including their religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity and income.' From the article: "The database, which would combine information disclosed voluntarily by customers with facts gleaned from public databases, conceivably would give Amazon a larger or more detailed profile of its customers than any other retailer. Does this cross the privacy line or is it just reasonable data gathering to make retail sales more responsive to customer needs?"

Comments

Great stuff

[roman_mir]

Of-course there is no way that a company can do something stupid and cause evil (pdf) with data like that.

Re:This is yet another attack by business

[tuxette]

In EU, a private company can not ask which religion a person has.

I assume you're thinking about an employment situation. They can ask you if it is directly relevant to the job.

Re:No data gathering is reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

And for what? So Albertsons can collect demographic information on me? No thanks!

So give them bullshit information. If you pay full price instead of taking a 10 to 25% discount, it goes straigh to their bottom line. Your cash, your call.

At Safeway, I was once unable to come up with the card and my phoone number came up dry. (I think I originally put it in before my area code got changed.) So the clerk grabs one off the counter and says, "Use this one."

Anyway, they get my name off my CC, but if I pay cash, but use the club card, they say, "Thank you, Mr. ... uh ... uh ... Valued Customer.