Amazon Patent’s Privacy Pratfall
Written by Erik ShermanJuly 8th, 2010
Against a backdrop of years of vigilance in protecting consumer privacy, a newly public Amazon Patent application raises a wide range of privacy concerns. The Patent Pending envisions making gift recommendations to strangers, leveraging Amazon's legendary database of consumer data. It speaks of using third-party databases, in addition to its own, to suggest gift ideas for--in an example the Patent Pending actually uses--"single Protestant Asian women between the ages of 25 and 35 with disposable incomes greater than $50,000."
And because Amazon's new invention would make specific gift recommendations for anyone who asked, it raises the question of how easily crooks could go on private-data fishing expeditions, trying one gift after another to uncover personal details about their targets.
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3 Comments | Read Amazon Patent’s Privacy Pratfall
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-Ed
July 8th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Nicely done, Erik. It’s scary stuff and you explained it well. Thanks!
However … “Patent Pending(s)” ???
Where do we find “patent pending” used as a thing rather than a simple, short statement that a patent is pending for the invention?
When patents are pending, they’re simply pending patents, right?
And why on earth do we find “patent” capitalized in this piece? Even the United States Patent and Trademark Office doesn’t capitalize the word except in headlines, document titles, etc.
OK, so it’s a nit. You’re in a hurry and supported by an editor who has less time than you do to bang these things out. It’s just the Internet.
I don’t have an editor so I’m sure I’ve used sloppy language somewhere in the above ….. Mea culpa.
July 8th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Okay, this begs the question: How does Amazon know who the “stranger” is? Certainly a name isn’t sufficient: I can’t just say I want to buy a gift for Jane Smith, as there must be hundreds or thousands in the database. Will the system prompt me for the correct address? Because this could allow someone to “look up” a person who may not be listed in other online directories.
And the example of the 5-year-old: Do I have to provide the name and age? It is unlikely that the 5-year-old will be in Amazon’s database–who lets 5-year-olds shop online under their own name? So now I am ADDING the 5-year-old to Amazon’s database FOR THEM! Along with the address, etc.
Now, you could claim that many gifts are purchased for 5-year-olds from Amazon, so they are already in the “ship-to” database. But those names are not specifically tied to the age of the recipient; even if the gift is age-specific, it may be shipped in the parent’s name.
And, since many of us buy from multiple online sources, Amazon’s database on us is necessarily incomplete, so the example of indicating that a CD has already been purchased for someone would only occasionally be possible.
July 8th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Bob, you’re quite right but missed the point: of course Google will need access a great deal more data, specifically including that from the infamous third parties – perhaps public records of various sorts. Then they can cross-reference the data to uniquely identify all of us. All under the name of making it easy to purchase gifts for one another. How innocuous does that sound?
This is one more strategem Google is using to amass the Database of Destiny (DoD) that will allow them to insinuate themselves into our lives at every point.
Let’s all re-read George Orwell, shall we?