Consumer profiling can make you gay
Monday, December 2nd, 2002Interesting story at ArsTechnica:As this article points out, many consumers are finding themselves presented with odd choices when they return to their favorite websites. Just today I searched on Amazon.com for “writers market”. Now, when I return to Amazon I’m presented with a list of recommendations, all of them books matching my earlier search criteria. This kind of techno-profiling, or as they would like you to believe, “feature”, is becoming quite common.For a live demonstration before an audience of 500 people, Mr. [Jeff] Bezos once logged onto Amazon.com to show how it caters to his interests. The toprecommendation it gave him? The DVD for “Slave Girls From BeyondInfinity.” That popped up because he had previously ordered “Barbarella,” ...