What the hell?

Knowledge

Amazon, eBay, and my ISP know more about me than I care to think about. It's alarming. I forget why I've put items in my wish list, but they sit there until they're rediscovered. Sometimes I laugh b/c I meant to purchase the book for someone else but 'saved' it for later.

Today I giggled when I saw that The Vagina Monologue (paperback ed.) was most popular in Pullman, WA and Malden, MA. (Two hotbeds of sin.) I never noticed Amazon was slicing and dicing user shopping behavior so closely. (The listing comes up under product detail.) "Purchase Circles" are automatically assigned to your Amazon profile. As of today, I'm not only in the "New York, NY" circle, but the "Hotmail Corporation". And since I've been adding items to my wishlist willy nilly this afternoon, I suppose "v@gina", "c*nt", "0rgasm", and "g-spot" are close to follow?

Alright, alright. A bit of background. I met the infamous Safina. Interesting crowd with an even better suggested reading list. And so I looked online. (I had been meaning to compare the price point of the spanish review book I picked up last week anyway) Safina sells 'sex-ories' which obviously implies a certain level of openness on personal behavior. Although Purchase Circles are primarily geographic, they do utilize category groupings (education, companies, government, organizations). It irks me (tangential thought: remind me to tell you about being called 'Irkku' some othertime) that my purchase habits are being used. Yes, it's my fault for not reading the privacy policy. And yes, I can opt-out. Check out your own "Recommendation List" some time and see if the book listed there is one you've even read. No, really. Creepy.

posted by irene @ 3/18/2003 05:37:00 PM