Amazon.com is making me a might nervous...

OK. First of all, because I was over in the Muad thread, when I come to the site, they try to sell me a bunch of Confederacy Conspiracy Theory books. And because I've been at The Agony Booth, they also push "Hercules in New York" on me. So there's that.

But what is really creepy is the stuff at the bottom of the page. They're also suggesting a book on marketing, which isn't that big a surprise, given the number of business school texts I bought through Amazon. Still... And after that is a book on professional writing, which is something I'm contemplating to augment my (lack of) income during my job hunt and a book on product marketing and project management.

Now I have told NO one about my interest in doing freelance writing. Well, I guess I told a couple people in e-mails. And unless Amazon is tied into Monster, I fail to see how they figured out I was heavily involved in project management currently. It'd freaking me out.

It also notes what items you've looked at on the site. Is it possible that you've browsed through a few books on the topic, but forgotten all about it? That seems a little more likely to me.

Nope. Absolutely not. To be fair, the writing book has a marketing thrust to it, and a lot of the stuff MBAs do is project management-oriented, so it is possible that their software is good enough. Still, it's creepy. If they start offering me German Dungeon Porn I'm getting a fake account.

I was browsing through some seasons of Will and Grace to buy for one of my friends, and it keeps making suggestions for Brokeback Mountain.

Amazon.com just gave me $160 back because the price of the HDTV I bought dropped within 30 days since my purchase.

Hmmm. Well, they do correlate sales, so maybe they're looking at the books you've bought and offering you books that other people bought in addition.

Try going back through the list of books you bought and looking at the "People who bought this item also bought" lists. You might find the books they're push at you there.

Oh, and start shredding your financial documents before you bin them, just in case.

If you don't wear your nice tinfoil hat beanie when you surf their site, they will read your mind every time.

I wouldn't dare go anywhere on the internet tubes without it. I might catch a virus or something.

I really, really like Amazon. Their customer service has been consistently great.

They are that good because they record your every mouse click and IMO work by means of the semantic web. Yes, even when you're not logged in which is how I surf it (don't need them knowing everything). But sometimes when there's not enough data they'll just fill in something related to what's supposed to be your interest. If you bought text books - there you go. The system doesn't only know the titles and a few tags, it knows what the book is about. For example, when you look up INTERMEDIATE MICROECONOMICS by Hal Varian it'll assume that you're a beginner student and not recommend something on macroeconomics (because a name/tag search would probably bring that up) - it will ask you if you want to buy his accompanying training book, the utterly useless WORKOUTS. Same goes for all kinds of books and music.

And it's great IMHO. Helped me find a lot of new stuff already, especially in books.

The truth's a bitch, huh Volpone?

might makes rite.

I think initially I was gonna say "mighty nervous".

They are making me nervous because my Christmas shipment hasn't arrived yet....

See!? It's not just me. The Onion has also noticed this disturbing trend:

[action=Paladin]is considering the purchase of a new television[/action]

You bought a TV from Amazon? Did that work out well for you? Would you buy a TV from Amazon again?

I found THIS:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GF7KSO/ref=amb_link_4235012_2/002-9341557-5028019

I wants it.

You'd amazed what sort of stuff marketers can figure out about someone just with tracking cookies and logging what people have bought in the past. Then there is everything you have ever clicked, posted, liked, or even just looked at on social media and don't forget how they can often track you cross platforms so that your online life is basically an open book.

They know everything about you right down to the creepy fettish porn you are in to.

At least they didn't suggest this.

(George Takei has a good review of it)

One of my favorites is "As UPS discretely unloaded my 55 gallon drum, the driver accidentally spilled it into my driveway. Any amount of cars can now fit into the garage."

Volpone used to start interesting topics before ODS ate his brain.

NPR had a bit on Target's data mining to build profiles on customers just using their discount card for the store. They'd design customer advertising and coupons which were mailed to people's homes.

They were so good at it they could have a complete profile of sex, age, wither they were single, cohabiting, or married, education level, income, hobbies/interests, political ideology, if they're religious and what type, even race.

They even could tell if a woman was pregnant or not just by what she bought. One mom asked her daughter if she was pregnant because the target flier was filled with maturnity ads, the daughter truefully said no, but a few weeks later found out she was. Target figured out she was pregnant before she even knew it.

Well that was worth bumping a 7 year old thread for.

Holy frack. How do you even find a 7 year old thread?

Not quite ... the teenager knew she was pregnant, which is why she was buying things typically associated with pregnancy, but her father didn't. He called the company demanding to know why his daughter was getting maternity ads, asking if Target was trying to encourage her to get pregnant, then when a manager called him to apologize, the dad apologized instead because he had learned that his daughter really was pregnant.

Here's a story about how they figured it out:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

Is there anybody in today's day and age that really thinks there's such a thing as online privacy? Everything you've ever done on the internet is an open book for those with the know-how and resources to search.

I don't know but I keep seeing Amazon ads on MySpace!

I'd heard that story on Colbert a while ago. That's crazy shit!

I didn't. It was already at the top but the spammer who did bump it got deleted.