Amazon Knows WAY too much about me

[La Lioness Priyanka]

These are the books they suggest for me:

Rebuilding Workbook: When Your Relationship Ends (Rebuilding Books)

A People's History of the United States : 1492-Present (Perennial Classics)

Lies Across America : What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong

Crazy Time : Surviving Divorce and Building a New Life, Revised Edition


I mean honestly how do they know this stuff.....

[Gothic Sponge]

1. They use Precogs

:silly:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. should i be scared?

i think i am weirded out

:P

[J-Lo Biafra]

3. I do not go on Amazon.

It frightens me that they can track my every interest.

[ghostsofgiants]

4. How often do you browse Amazon? They base recommendations on the products

That you browse.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. very rarely...adn i have only really bought a digital camera

i mean i know how they recommend these books...but still kinda weird

[J-Lo Biafra]

7. Don't they plant tracking devices in their cameras?

:scared:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. i dont think so

:D

[Lavender Brown]

6. My recommendations

Lidia's Italian Table
by Lidia Bastianich
Average Customer Review:

Best Books for Kids Who (Think They) Hate to Read: 125 Books That Will Turn Any Child into a Lifelong Reader
by LAURA BACKES


An American Plague : The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (Newbery Honor Book)
by Jim Murphy
This one ... :wtf:

[Angry Girl]

9. get used to it....

If Amazon knows where you live and what credit card(s) you use, they can make certain guesses about your income and demographic. They also track what other products you have searched on their site.

Also, if you pay your supermarket bill with a credit/debit card, there is a database that tracks whether you are prone to athlete's foot or fond of broccoli or recently acquired a puppy.

Same for gas purchases: One can surmise what kind of car you may have based on gas-buying patterns and the distribution of gas pumps you visit. As well as your work hours and such.

And all of that lovely data is information available to anyone who would buy it!

And gawd forbid you should visit a hospital!

Ah, the wonders of our corporate America....

[La Lioness Priyanka]

10. its almost funny

some of the things i have bought with my credit card is amusing...

[Angry Girl]

16. us too - including stuff for whacky film projects... *lol*

I just assume everybody knows everything about me. And I assume all the DU posts are tracked.

Here's some cheery news: You ever heard of Echelon?

http://www.echelonwatch.org/

In the beginning there were many problems processing and detecting patterns on that much data but that's changed....

Also here's some other ways to destroy your ideas of privacy in this country.

http://archive.aclu.org/echelonwatch/networks.html

argh.... not a good morning.... Every day I despise our government more. I need cheering up. Thank goodness for the good people at DU and elsewhere!

[arcane1]

11. weird...

the Historic Sites book sounds interesting, but the relationship suggestions are kinda creepily timed... who do you know at Amazon? :silly:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. do you work at amazon mr?

[arcane1]

17. I am not at liberty to divulge such information

but you would be amazed at what we know

um, I mean what THEY know :9

[liontamer]

12. maybe they browse your du posts

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. maybe they tap into our apartment

:P

:silly:

[McKenzie]

13. do you enable cookies?

or do you keep certain cookies, eg Amazon, when you clear your cache?

Amazon cookies are not per session types - they live a lot longer. If you don't know about how cookies track you or referrer logging it might be worth doing some research. Here's a start

http://biz.usatoday.findlaw.com/business_commercial/business_operations/nolo/ency/61B1BB59-C0E6-4E7B-99A6F661C19BC43B.html