The short story (and only part of the story covered here but the answer to the headline) is that since Amazon and Google are competing, Amazon might be obscuring the details of people’s orders in...
The short story (and only part of the story covered here but the answer to the headline) is that since Amazon and Google are competing, Amazon might be obscuring the details of people’s orders in email confirmations so that Gmail can’t parse them to figure out your purchase history!
We can probably expect a lot more of this sort of adversarial action taken by monopolists against each other in ways that are annoying and make life more frustrating for users. But on the plus side, it also opens up opportunities for smaller players to differentiate themselves. A smaller e-commerce retailer that doesn’t depend on surveillance and promoted search ads to make their money probably cares a lot less if Google is inferring about consumer preferences.
This has been particularly frustrating for me because I just wrote a nightly script to help me identify Amazon charges in YNAB and I was using the order confirmation emails to do that. I swear...
This has been particularly frustrating for me because I just wrote a nightly script to help me identify Amazon charges in YNAB and I was using the order confirmation emails to do that. I swear like two days into the script working perfectly they stopped including product details.
I would have loved to borrow a copy of this from you. Perhaps there's an API one can use to get their own Amazon purchases? I'll add looking into that to my todo list to get to..eventually
I would have loved to borrow a copy of this from you. Perhaps there's an API one can use to get their own Amazon purchases? I'll add looking into that to my todo list to get to..eventually
A friend literally mentioned this last night. He ordered a cigar cutter from Amazon (I didn't even know they sold anything related to tobacco/nicotine). And he asked us what category the item was...
A friend literally mentioned this last night. He ordered a cigar cutter from Amazon (I didn't even know they sold anything related to tobacco/nicotine). And he asked us what category the item was listed as in the email. I joked "circumcision tool." But apparently, I wasn't too far off: It was classified as medical.
I hadn't noticed the change since I've reduced my Amazon buying somewhat.
The short story (and only part of the story covered here but the answer to the headline) is that since Amazon and Google are competing, Amazon might be obscuring the details of people’s orders in email confirmations so that Gmail can’t parse them to figure out your purchase history!
We can probably expect a lot more of this sort of adversarial action taken by monopolists against each other in ways that are annoying and make life more frustrating for users. But on the plus side, it also opens up opportunities for smaller players to differentiate themselves. A smaller e-commerce retailer that doesn’t depend on surveillance and promoted search ads to make their money probably cares a lot less if Google is inferring about consumer preferences.
This has been particularly frustrating for me because I just wrote a nightly script to help me identify Amazon charges in YNAB and I was using the order confirmation emails to do that. I swear like two days into the script working perfectly they stopped including product details.
I would have loved to borrow a copy of this from you. Perhaps there's an API one can use to get their own Amazon purchases? I'll add looking into that to my todo list to get to..eventually
I don't think there is such an API, or at least one that's generally available. I would love to be wrong
A friend literally mentioned this last night. He ordered a cigar cutter from Amazon (I didn't even know they sold anything related to tobacco/nicotine). And he asked us what category the item was listed as in the email. I joked "circumcision tool." But apparently, I wasn't too far off: It was classified as medical.
I hadn't noticed the change since I've reduced my Amazon buying somewhat.