From the Mind of Meegs

Now, I love Amazon. Really and truly, I do. Just yesterday, I was telling Sister #1 (that's MML, as opposed to AIL or MCL--for those of you to whom that means something) that Amazon is God's greatest gift to man outside of salvation. And I meant it...OK, granted, I meant it just as much as a person can actually mean a statement such as that.

One nice thing about Amazon is the way it relates things you've already purchased to other items of interest. Put something in your cart, and it will tell you what other people who bought your item also bought. It will add related items to your "recommended for you" list. It may even send you emails when a related item is first released or when it goes on sale. I love this. Sometimes I even "amazon" (if google can be a verb, I submit that amazon can as well) a favorite book I already own, and not even one I necessarily bought from Amazon in the first place, just to see what fresh reading material I might happen across. Using your purchase history and the ratings you assign items you already own, Amazon gets to know you better than your own mother knows you.

And I suppose, deep down, I had to know that Amazon is also keeping track of your browsing history. How else to explain the stat that tells you what people do after looking at the page you're looking at? (You know, the one that says <blank>% of people purchase the item featured on this page, <blank>% purchase this other item, etc. Always amuses me when it says that such and such percent actually wind up purchasing, say, the latest Harry Potter book--when the Harry Potter book really has nothing to do with what you're actually looking at, it's just that they sell that many HP books. Methinks the coding for that feature needs a little fine tuning. But I digress.)

But it's one thing to keep track of general browsing/purchasing history and trends. As I discovered recently, Amazon also keeps close tabs on your own personal browsing history. I received an email that began, "As someone who's shopped in <category X>..." Now, I have browsed pages in that category several times, looking for price information and related products and reviews and such. But I've never actually bought anything from Amazon in that category. If I make a purchase, that involves me actively clicking on things and releasing my info and such, and in that case I can understand and even welcome them using info on my likes and dislikes. But now I feel like the Amazon Gremlin is standing over my shoulder, taking diligent notes on every page I even visit, regardless of how long I stay there.

Also interesting is the curiously solicitous spam notice at the bottom of their emails. "We hope you enjoyed receiving this message," it begins, before going on to tell me how to opt out if I haven't enjoyed it. I mean, come on--enjoyed? Even for someone who loves Amazon as much as me, I think they're overestimating their impact my psyche. It's not like I let out a whoop of delight every time I get an email from them. How will they raise the bar next? "We hope that this life-changing email has fulfilled your every hope and desire..."