Amazon marketing

[NomoneyNohoney]

Many years ago, I signed up with Amazon Uk. I've made one purchase in the last four years, a music player.

Today I was looking at Amazon, and noticed a section headlined, "Buy in other parts of the store." The items highlighted looked eerily familiar, as they correspond quite well with items that my son uses. He is a heavy user of Amazon, and buys almost everything he ever wants from them.

Teeth whitening strips, electric toothbrush, Shiatsu massage pillow (!), Indian healing clay - all these items I'm sure he has previously bought. The clincher though, is the showing of a posture corrector brace. There was a time he was concerned that his upper torso was heading towards scoliosis, and he did wear a correcting brace of some kind, till he got tired of being a Drama Queen.

He has the same surname as me, his address is the same, so are Amazon trying to cross-sell these items? It seems much more than coincidence, the items that are shown - would he see recommendations based on my Amazon browsing? If so, I'm going to search for books like "How to Make your Child Stop being Lazy", "How to become a Useful Member of Society," "Perfect Presents for your Parents" - you get the idea.

I know Amazon use dynamic pricing so they monitor products and it seems quite possible to me that what I have suggested is happening - they're a very tech-savvy company after all.

Has anyone else noticed this kind of thing or do you think I need a new tin-foil hat?

[bungeejumper]

I wouldn't throw away the tinfoil hat just yet. For a while, I was getting Amazon promos that clearly related to the kind of stuff my wife buys - plants and gardening gear, and the occasional pharmaceutical. She has her own accounts and her own email address (although it's an ordinary subset of my own domain name, xxx@ bungee.com for example).

In fact, the only thing we have in common, Amazon-wise, is that we both use the same router. Is it possible that the evil empire has associated our two email accounts because we share an IP address, and has allowed its mailings to wander across the borderline between us? God help the privacy of the workplace if that ever happens.

BJ

[JamesMuenchen]

There are so many ways they can do this that I really didn't consider the same postal details as a possibility

I was thinking of individual advertising ID's, cookies, device ID's, IP addresses ... they even bug our homes.

I have a friend who has a French flat-mate. When the flat-mate's French girlfriend comes over for a visit they naturally speak French together.
Following these visits my friend gets French adverts for a few days. They put it down to Alexa on various devices, including mobile phones.

[bungeejumper]

I have a friend who has a French flat-mate. When the flat-mate's French girlfriend comes over for a visit they naturally speak French together.
Following these visits my friend gets French adverts for a few days. They put it down to Alexa on various devices, including mobile phones.

There are stories of people getting ads for funeral homes and will-writing, directly after they've been discussing their relatives' health problems within hearing reach of an Alexa box. I wouldn't have any of that stuff in my house.

BJ

[didds]

For a genuine comparison/consieratioon you will need to also note all the ads you arev provided for stuff you/wife/son/etc have zero interest in, and then compare the numbers.

Without dissing the cross-fertilisation concerns, it could be a variation of confiormation bioas - you only notice the stuff you can "recognise" as having a connection.