This is their list for me, on a personal account where I’m the sole user and use it mostly to buy gifts. I have never used Alexa or Rufus. Many details are incorrect (I do not do origami or make jewelry, but I have shopped for folks who do), but some are spot on (yarn). It also looks like they scan any product reviews from the account.
FWIW, they refer you to the privacy policy, which is exactly as helpful as you would expect.
It feels illegal to me for Amazon to start data mining this hard, especially with old Buyer accounts that never agreed to anything like this and for Seller accounts, and then use the same tactics for which they were penalized to make shoppers feel badly about not sharing enough.
I haven’t read all of the fine print, but don’t many sellers research their items on Amazon before offering them for sale? As a bookseller, I do that often, and Amazon’s pea-brained system must think I have all sorts of interests I do not, thus some silly recommendations in my account.
I don’t know if there is any way to prevent Amazon from collecting this data, and all deleting it from this section does is remove it from targeted advertising.
Yet another reason to never forget the facility of regular (I’d advise, at least, annually) engagement with the functionality offered by the CHC’s (“Customer-facing Help Content” in ‘Dogtamerese’) “Request Your Personal Information” (link, CHC) page, methinks.
ETA:
Hat-tip to our well-missed friend Rush, who was the first of the seasoned and savvy forum veterans I saw create a tutorial explaining how to secure this PII, and why it takes a bit o’ time for Amazon’s far-flung global systems to accumulate the data.
Nah, I admittedly bought a (motorcycle-branded) helmet hanger for the buy’ce. Gotta wall mount that sucker! Keeps it out of the way and looks nice to boot.
That was hysterical. I am sharing this with everyone. My friend’s said he regularly reads manga. He bought a manga once years ago as a birthday gift.
My issue with this is - are they going to limit what I get for search results because they think they know what I want? It could explain why it is easier to shop on Walmart over Amazon. Amazon keeps giving me the same stuff over and over again. If I didn’t buy it the first 10 times you showed me, it hasn’t changed now.
As a seller, it is going to be harder to reach new buyers if Amazon assumes they won’t like your stuff.
You can clear your information from this section (don’t imagine the data is deleted, just removed from consideration in your “personalization”) but that won’t help you reach buyers.
That is my biggest issue, not only was most of it wrong but it is going to limit new buyer experiences.
I started to delete stuff and realized why bother most of it is wrong anyway. Would be interesting if I delete everything and then start getting actual diverese search results again.
If this is on your buyer account, aren’t you talking about reaching sellers? The limitation will be on my buyer account so it effects us as a buyer reaching sellers.
As a seller, removing any thing on my buyer account doesn’t effect my reach to the buyers on Amazon. That reach will be effected by Amazon and what those buyers on Amazon do with what’s under their own “About You”.
What you say is correct, but @VLT was concerned about buyers not being able to find them. Every buyer would have to clear their own preferences to keep Amazon from gating them out of seeing a wider variety of items.
Like how my Netflix / Hulu / HBO / etc profile is vastly different than my wife’s.
Me: Comedy, Sci-fi, Action, are primary
Wife: Rom-Com, Reality TV Series, Comedy are her primary
The issue is that I like some Westerns, Rom-Com, etc but I get shown the “same” movies / shows just with them in “different” categories.
Sometimes I think I need to “start over” and clear the cache because I hate doom scrolling for something different to watch than the 100 movies they think I want to see for the 4th time or after having watched it in the last month.
I have particularly noticed lately a high incidence of seeing items from brands I have recently purchased from–even if it’s not the brand I have most often purchased for that/similar item, and without my giving product reviews or Seller feedback.
Now, I am me, and I finagle my shopping searches to workaround Amazon prioritizing those brands, but I was still wondering why the heck Amazon thinks I’m all in on some rando brand I bought once (maybe on a deal) versus the brands I have bought from consistently over the years.
And it’s right there in About You: “Brands”.
When you click, you get brands (with arrows to orders) that AI thinks you “choose,” “select,” “prefer,” or “favor.” But…no. Buying a single product one time is not a meaningful data point and should not now be gumming up searches based on my so-called “preferences”.
But that’s what we’re up against now as Sellers: Amazon limiting Buyers’ views of (allegedly) non-preferred brands in search and featured screen time based on very faulty AI extrapolation.
