11 votes

Your very public Amazon shopping history is a window onto your soul

7 comments

  1. [3]
    Greg
    Link
    Not a data breach, but an interesting piece on what we knowingly but unthinkingly make public. There's an accidental intimacy to the stories that come together from a decade of a person's product...

    Not a data breach, but an interesting piece on what we knowingly but unthinkingly make public. There's an accidental intimacy to the stories that come together from a decade of a person's product reviews, even though the user is consciously and deliberately choosing to put each individual piece out there for the world to see.

    8 votes
    1. [2]
      tan
      Link Parent
      This is certainly interesting and not something we tend to think about, but it was rather lost on my reading of it until I came here and saw your comment. While reading the article, I instead felt...

      This is certainly interesting and not something we tend to think about, but it was rather lost on my reading of it until I came here and saw your comment. While reading the article, I instead felt disappointed that it wasn't actually shopping history.

      Maybe editing the title to say "Amazon review history" would help?

      1. Greg
        Link Parent
        Yeah, that seems like a good edit - by force of habit I tend to stick with the exact source title, but I should probably un-learn that here on Tildes! As far as I know only moderators can edit...

        Yeah, that seems like a good edit - by force of habit I tend to stick with the exact source title, but I should probably un-learn that here on Tildes!

        As far as I know only moderators can edit titles after posting, though.

        1 vote
  2. [2]
    JXM
    Link
    I was expecting to be able to see all of someone's purchases...making public the fact that they bought something and reviewed it doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Amazon has enough of a trust...

    I was expecting to be able to see all of someone's purchases...making public the fact that they bought something and reviewed it doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. Amazon has enough of a trust problem with all the fake reviews and knock offs. Having a "verified purchase" review at least helps a modicum of trust.

    7 votes
    1. Kraetos
      Link Parent
      Right, this is a super misleading headline. Your Amazon purchase history isn't public, but your verified reviews are, because of course they are.

      Right, this is a super misleading headline. Your Amazon purchase history isn't public, but your verified reviews are, because of course they are.

      9 votes
  3. Shahriar
    Link
    Anonymize your reviews, sure the company requesting the reviews will still know you wrote it however it won't be easily as accumulated to form a profile like the article mentioned. This is...

    Anonymize your reviews, sure the company requesting the reviews will still know you wrote it however it won't be easily as accumulated to form a profile like the article mentioned. This is especially a concern with Google Maps reviewers, where looking at a profile, you can see directly on the map where a person typically shops or eats forming a good idea of where they visit and live.

    Leaving information like this in the public domain is the same as looking through someone's garbage to see the more intricate part of someone's life and what consists of it.

    4 votes
  4. rickdg
    Link
    Any review in amazon or google shouldn't give away the reviewer's identity or what history they have on the platform. By doing so, how can I give my honest opinion on anything? And if I still do,...

    Any review in amazon or google shouldn't give away the reviewer's identity or what history they have on the platform. By doing so, how can I give my honest opinion on anything? And if I still do, how can I rate it less than four or five stars? It's just a useless system, it only works because people are being conditioned to put on the internet more of themselves than what they show the world by just walking down the street.

    1 vote