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[–] 129 points 1 month ago (28 children)

I was hoping to find some saucy info on myself, but instead I got things like "prefers premium coffee brands with consistent flavor profiles" and "likely has a workshop"

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  • [–] 63 points 1 month ago (12 children)

    Mine was pretty bland too. "Has 1 cat" and "reads fantasy". I wanted to get insulted.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    Dude, there are so many places online you can get free insults from, I mean you are already here so why not post about the Ukraine war on lemmy.ml or mistake Star Trek for Star Wars or something.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    mistake Star Trek for Star Wars or something.

    One's got space magicians and the others got space wizards

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (1 child)
    1. This is funny.

    2. As an avid fan of both, I'm not sure which is supposed to be which. Star Trek has all the pazzaz of a magician, psuedo science and technobable explainations. But it also has characters who are literally magical. Meanwhile, Star Wars has old people in secret societies performing rituals in robes - all very wizardly. However, in universe, their "magic" is very well understood, continuously studied, is testable, and even reproducable. They use their well established abilities to trick people, and that's very magician.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    mistake Star Trek for Star Wars

    I'm all about Stargate 😉

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Is that the one with the gates deep in space? Deep gate 9 or something?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Your rage-baiting skills are impeccable 😆

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    Look, they found a way to connect to faraway regions of space and shortcut the journey, and decided a facility was necessary to protect against hostile intrusions and be a hub. Also something about returning control to the natives. Religion / religious zealots bad.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I think my favorite was "Systematically building electronics component inventory", but pretty much the same, mostly just my brand preferences and the stuff I tend to buy.

    I'm also really deliberate in how I shop Amazon though: sift through my options in a private window and once I narrow down to what I want, copy the link, remove the tracking garbage, open it in my regular window, add it to my cart, rinse and repeat. It's probably a paper shield at best, but good to know it helps curb the "[spends an inordinate amount of time comparing items, two thirds of which are also available on Ali Express]" inference.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Systematically building electronics component inventory

    Possible goal: self-hosting, possibly webshop. Possible future competition.

    Concussion: nip in the bud.

    Action: sending black ops team…

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    It was a boring dud for me, just that I prefer grey ELEGOO filament for my 3D printer.

    I don't buy much on Amazon, but it should be more than just filament. No notes about headphone choice or random one-of items I have bought?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    It has to be looking for trends, rather than one-offs, otherwise the list would be endless for some of us.

    The one I find interesting is “prefers premium shampoo brands”. My first thought was: what? But I buy “salon size” so I don’t have to buy frequently, and my kids apparently like nice stuff, so technically true but may not mean what they think it does

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    I’m a professional carpenter. I buy a fair amount of tools on Amazon. But I don’t have a home workshop, I just use this stuff at work. I live in a tiny apartment haha. I just think it’s funny that amazon thinks this is all a hobby for me.

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  • [–] 93 points 1 month ago*

    Jeff Bezos hosted Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to his private, invitation-only, weekend at a resort he rented out. Bezos had many close ties to Epstein. Bezos also had numerous private dinners with Epstein.

    The photo is from a party where Ghislaine Maxwell hobnobbed with him but make no mistake they were close friends.

    Make sure to add this note to your files about Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.

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  • [–] 106 points 1 month ago

    My first item "uses Linux"... But does it know I use arch btw?

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  • [–] 59 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    People discovering their apps watch them.

    Amazon is definitely going to plug that hole.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    I wonder if they already did... my account has no such link.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah they have removed it - between when I looked at it on my phone this morning while procrastinating about getting out of bed and now it has been removed from the UK website - the below link still works (modified to .uk)

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  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago (15 children)

    This definitely seems to be US-based at the moment. The relevant page doesn't exist on the Australian site, but if I log into the Amazon US site, it is there (albeit blank in my case, which is interesting).

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (13 children)

    It's in the UK version. On iPhone: You --> Account (along the top) --> Your Shopping preferences (under Personalization) --> About You (at the bottom).

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    I live in the UK and used the UK web version, it has nothing. Maybe because I have almost entirely stopped using Amazon?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    The UK web version definitely doesn't have any such link for me.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago* (3 children)
    1. Side bar --> You Account (see all)
    2. Scroll down to Account Settings --> Shopping Preferences

    It was pretty accurate about my interests which I saw no problem with ("prefers reliable open source ecosystems"), but took issue with it guessing the size of my family, so I updated it to say that I live in an underground bunker with 10 others in a polycule.

    I also updated my halloween decoration preferences to suggest I fight crime at night

    Can't wait to see what my next searches are like 👀

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    There's no "account settings" in the "your account" page. There's no "see all", and there's also no "shopping preferences". I assume you're being served a different page to me.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I found it on the UK web version but I had to use the browser's search function to find it on the page.

    It had nothing, which I'm hoping because I've previously opted out of analytics?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    It says that I have an 11-year old child. Unless you count household pets, there ain't no such thing.

    Also, it knows about two out of eight RAM sticks that I bought from Ebay. It mentions other AI assistants learned about me, and asked if I wanted to share. I think assistants from other websites are already sharing.

    ...ah. I used someone else's PC and account to ask Google questions about my computer build. My personal Amazon account is under the Prime account of that person.

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  • [–] 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Mine just told me that they do not have any information about me outside of my shopping history and tried to get me to activate Alexa to change that - over my dead body lol

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Seems to be a US-thing. I see the preferences, but they're all empty.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    So the question is, is the data not collected on you, or is it not presented to you?

    The second interpretation seems more likely given the context.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    It might depend on which country you're in as to what they're allowed to actually collect. Personally I suspect that they'd have built a profile on me, but they just haven't rolled this out to Australia yet.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago

    Thanks for posting this, prompted me to log in and delete my account

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  • [–] 21 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I logged into my old US account. It didn't have anythin on me, but did have this:

    LOL. Fuck no.

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  • [–] [S] 42 points 1 month ago

    Amazon has spent years turning customer surveillance into a business model, and now we discover it apparently keeps detailed records while insulting the very people funding its empire. Nothing says customer obsession quite like treating customers as data mines and punchlines. Bezos built a trillion dollar machine that knows your shopping habits but apparently never learned basic respect.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    You know who has no friends?

    Douchebag Jeff Bezos. That's who.

    Everyone fucking hates you dude.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I've never seen a photo of his yacht full of people having fun.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago

    I like knowing how little Amazon actually knows about me. It's a relief to see.

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  • [–] 40 points 1 month ago* (14 children)

    The "manage your information" section doesn't exist where I'm at.

    (Yes, I did a text search)

    Instead, we have "request your data" which likely would give you complete files of all data they have on you. I'm not going to crawl through that right now.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Even though I'm on desktop, I had to follow the article's mobile directions to find the relevant page. Here is a direct link that may work.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

    I selected the request to get advertisement related. Theb they sent a freaking email with a confirmation link. I decided to go through.

    After selecting that, they say something like, "it should be completed in a month, but it can take more time because of high request volumes."

    Yeah a database query is going to take a month.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Facebook took about 2 months back then for me, but this was shortly after the GDPR was enacted.

    Issue is probably not the database query, but that it is a bunch of databases, and that they are not willing to assign more than a skeleton crew to these things, because they only cost them money and they wouldn't do it if it were possible to deny it at all.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    I've done data requests to Google to get all my YouTube and Google photos data in the past. Both took less than a few days, despite the latter covering over 100GB of data.

    The former I did so I could get all my subscriptions into a third party client, the latter was so I could easily get all my photos with their metadata into an alternative hosting platform. These data request tools can be useful.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    It took reddit a month (to the day IIRC) to send me my data as well (like everything I'd ever written on the site) when I requested all my info just before I left. Must be some law that says a month in it somewhere.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Oh that’s it. I did not see it as described in original article.

    Mine shows nothing wildly wrong or insulting(which I was hoping to see). It knows I grill, fix household stuff, (“Systematically maintains homes systems”) thinks I have a singular child (I have many), that I am “invested in the Apple ecosystem), what brand of car I drive and that I have a GE stovetop. Alll things I have bought items for off Amazon.

    Honestly I expected to see a lot more.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    I was able to find it by following the mobile app instructions. Mine was pretty boring. It had stuff like "Likely lives in (city where I ship my orders)" and "Likely favors (brand of thing that I've bought multiple times)". I guess the most invasive thing is that it guessed I live alone, or rather that I "likely has one adult."

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

    It also claimed someone kept a “seasonal rotation of decorative goose outfits,”

    Now I'm interested

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    That reminds me that I need to get some new seasonal outfits for MY decorative goose...

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    One of the items on my profile is "Probably lives in [my city], [my state]". They have my shipping address, shouldn't they be a bit more confident about it?

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago*

    Looking through the info they have on me, it seems entirely made up of information regarding past purchases and shipping locations. It mentioned having 2 people at my address, but said other person has an account linked to mine and with the same shipping address, so it's all relatively shallow information. I didn't see any deep dive "HOW DID THEY GET THAT??" stuff that would otherwise be alarming.

    Edit: I should add that I don't own or use any of their Alexa products or any related technology. Those might spy on people a little more thoroughly.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago

    This should shock no one and if anything the shocking thing is transparency (though that is likely a ploy as I guarantee based on these articles plenty of people will go view it to correct the record, giving Amazon a great source of refinement for ad tracking)

    Literally every major website (and basically every website that run JavaScript for that matter) tracks and profiles you. Your tv does the same, as does your phone and almost all the apps on it, etc. and the profiling they don’t show you definitely exists: race, political affiliation/leaning, income estimates, address, educational level, health issues, etc

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    There is no "about you" option on the Canadian version 🤔

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