Amazon’s recommendations are getting a little too creepy
Amazon’s recommendations are getting a little too creepy
I ordered groceries from Amazon Fresh. Now I’m getting prescription drug recommendations.
There was a article years ago. A young woman started getting Target coupons for diapers and baby formula. A few weeks later she found out she was pregnant. She had been using her loyalty card to make purchases and had bought unscented hand cream and some other low perfume things that apparently are usually purchased by people who are expecting as their sense of smell becomes heightened and the sents become overwhelming.
Honestly I'd like to see a ban on targeted pharmaceutical advertisement. Prescription medication should be between you and your doctor.
131And then what they found was that to be more effective was to mix up the suggestions for late term pregnancy / early childhood products with basically random nonsense...
... because if its too obvious that they are highly statistically confident that they know things about you that they shouldn't, people get weirded out and are less likely to buy something so specifically targeted at them.
They know an insane amount, and they do not want you to know that they know that much.
49Are we sure we can call that targeted pharmaceutical advertisement? It sounds like it could just be the algorithm accidentally discovering a correlation between expecting mothers and preference for unscented hand creams and such.
Unless Amazon did specifically program that in, I think these accidental correlation is not something you can control before it happens and trying to regulate them would be a waste of time and resources.
29IIRC, she miscarried and sued for the emotional distress of continued ads which followed the expected development of her (tragically lost) baby.
26holy shit
6
But how do you know if a prescription is right for you if you can't ask your doctor today! /s
12The other things were like a large purse/tote bag and a rug, so yeah it was kinda random (so it seems) but apparently the evidence is pretty solid in that case.
Doesn’t make it any less weird though.
9The republicans would love this technology but they're to busy trying to figure out how to turn on their TV. What's the wire thing in the back of it supposed to do? What about the little black brick with letters on it? It doesn't even say anything useful like WTF is 123? 456? 789? I get it seven ate nine! It gets this one, its funny 🤣! Anyway it will take some time before the republicans could make use of tech like that.... unless evil people help them.
1Ohh, there's plenty of IT people that are Republican. There are just less IT jobs in the rural areas.
Also most medium- plus sized businesses have conservative-minded owners and they all need IT staff either in-house or rental.
1
Before I even knew I had gonorrhea, Alexa was recommending me penicillin. She also recommended I stay away from the local brothels. And to lay off the whiskey. Also, Alexa is my doctor.
58"you're going to die. but first, renew your prime subscription."
26Was the advice prescriptive or subscriptive?
5
Lucky you then that Amazon now has their own pharmacy!
3
It's funny how in this country, the public rhetoric is inundated with people decrying this type of behavior from governments as "big brother" and 1984, but as soon as you slap an inc on the back and make it Big Brother, Inc everyone's completely fine with it.
40And more than willing to pay for the privelege.
12Because with corporations you theoretically are able to opt out.
1Let me know where I can opt out of Equifax.
2
Too creepy? Or too crappy?
13I think it depends on the individual. The ones I get are definitely crappy (and occasionally hilarious, like the time it was trying to sell me a copy of Latin for Gardeners.)
3
it's wild to me that just advertising drugs is legal in the first place.
12It's legal in US but not in most other countries
7it's only fully legal in the US and NZ. all other countries either outright ban it out have restrictions.
6
When I switched to Amazon pharmacy all I had to do was give them my name and birthday they were instantly able to find my insurance provider all of my active meds at my current pharmacy and order refill and switch pharmacy to Amazon all within 5 or 6 clicks. You can assume they already had this info from one way or another and the me clicking permissions was theater
12To be fair though, that's pretty much any pharmacy system. I just switched my main pharmacy over last year, and it's basically the same process.
6
The only thing that sounds sketchier than an Amazon drug marketplace is a Temu drug marketplace.
11Temu drugs would ship in a Ziploc sandwich bag with the name of the drug misspelled in black sharpie on a piece of tan masking tape stuck to it.
8
In case people forgot:
https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/
They (basically any large online retailer or advertiser) are, in fact, listening to everything you say near your phone, near your alexa, your echo, your smart device.
Linking heard words and phrases with your known shopping activity + a gigantic dataset + statistical analysis = they can predict all kinds of things about you, with shockingly high accuracy, and thus aim products at you.
You know how archaeologists and detectives can make a decent profile of a person or group's daily lifestyle by analyzing your garbage?
Welcome to the cyberpunk dystopia version of that.
11Both links are paywalled, but if I’m remembering correctly, that company (CMG) eventually had to correct their claim that phones were actively listening to everything you say. It was an overzealous marketing guy trying to oversell. They admitted in the end that they use the same info that data brokers have on you based on data gathered from your browsing and other activity, not from actively listening to you.
Siri for example is designed in a way where it “listens” for your voice to call it, but that mechanism is completely separate from the actual Siri that connects to the internet to understand you.
44It would drain your battery like crazy if your phone would actively listen, transcribe and transmit whatever your say.
22I love that Siri is kinda stupid for just this very reason.
10
Besides the fact that present-day battery technology makes this impossible, modern smartphones display a very obvious indicator when apps are using the microphone.
Hotword detection notwithstanding, as that happens at the hardware level.
19with shockingly high accuracy, and thus aim products at you.
I'm still waiting for a single targeted add to be something I want, the best they've done so far is try and sell me things I already own.
14I'm not saying this information is wrong (I've previously shared 404 Media's reporting on this as well) but as far as I know the only source for this claim is still from CMG itself. No one has independently verified that CMG is actually capable of doing this, nor has any source come forward to confirm that "yes, this is real and my company uses it". I believe the closest we've had to that is a single company confirming that CMG made these same claims to them in a sales pitch. Basically, the entire story is based on marketing material that could also be complete bullshit. The tech industry is infested with grifters who will say anything to get ahead and this could just be another case of that. I understand that many people do not understand how data collection works and have been convinced for years that "the only way they could have known that is if they were listening to me" but 404 Media's reporting on this is not definitive proof that this technology actually exists and is seeing widespread use.
14Google told 404 Media in a statement that “All advertisers must comply with all applicable laws and regulations as well as our Google Ads policies, and when we identify ads or advertisers that violate these policies, we will take appropriate action.” The company said it had removed CMG from the Partners Program after a Google review. Amazon told 404 Media in a statement that “Amazon Ads has never worked with CMG on this program and has no plans to do so.” The company added that if it becomes aware that a partner is in violation of its marketing guidelines, it may take what it sees as appropriate action.
so yeah, sounds like the company's claims might not be completely true if they're boasting about working with Amazon.
9
There’s a lotta Apple hate on this site, but I really do appreciate their stance to apps using the camera and microphone.
3
You can put physical covers on a phone's cameras and mics.
6You are in no danger. I bought the full Sherlock Holmes collection as an ebook and get recommendations for the 500 other full Sherlock Holmes collection ebooks every day
6Use it less. Or none. Solved.
-11Wow you solved every data privacy problem. Just don't be a consumer, why didn't I think of that? It's not the companies that are the problem, it's our fault!
31yeah but tbh if you buy your groceries from amazon you probably didn't care about data privacy at all ever
I bought groceries online a few times during the pandemic, never before or after that, and not on Amazon, only at a grocery store chain's web shop. Good luck recommending anything to me based on what I eat.
2