Privacy advocates frown on Amazon snooping plan

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: kelley <kelley () rakfoundry com>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 11:52:28 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: Privacy advocates frown on Amazon snooping plan

Dave,

A couple of years ago, I was showing clients how you can use Google to find
out information that's publicly available. We searched on the name of
someone in the company. Within the top ten hits we discovered his "Wish
List." It wasn't horribly embarrassing stuff, but I could see how it might
be! If you use the Wish List feature, be sure that it's not made public if
you don't want it to be.

As for the latest Amazon controversy, privacy mavens are concerned about
Amazon's patent for a system that gathers information about recipients of
your Amazon purchases, using the information to suggest purchases and
future gifts. Privacy advocates are concerned because the system seems
geared toward children and could be a violation of COPPA.



Regards,

Kelley

--

Ink Works: Information security and privacy training

Web:   http://www.inkworkswell.com
Voice: +1 (727) 942-9255
Email: kelley () inkworkswell com


Privacy advocates frown on Amazon snooping plan

By Alorie Gilbert
http://news.com.com/Privacy+advocates+frown+on+Amazon+snooping+plan/2100-103
8_3-5611663.html

Story last modified Mon Mar 14 04:00:00 PST 2005

Post a review of a book or other product on Amazon.com, and the information
may find its way into the company's file on you.

That's one key feature, anyway, of a system Amazon has invented to gather
clues about customers' gift-giving habits in order to suggest future gifts
and reminders. The company was granted a patent last week for the system,
which also profiles gift recipients and guesses their age, birthday and
gender.

Amazon says it hasn't put the "systems and methods" covered by the patent
to use, so it isn't monitoring customer review pages yet. But that fact
gives little comfort to consumer advocates, who have hounded Amazon for
years over its customer-profiling practices.
News.context

What's new:
Amazon has been granted a patent for a system that gathers clues from
reviews about customers' gift-giving habits in order to suggest future
gifts and reminders.

Bottom line:
Consumer advocates worry that the company's profiling practices may have
gone too far and could exploit the giving of gifts and the sense of
community that customer reviews were designed to engender.

This latest invention is yet further cause for concern, because it could
involve profiling children and exploit the giving of gifts and the sense of
community that customer reviews were designed to engender, advocate groups
said.

"Amazon has continued to set the low bar for privacy on the Internet," said
Chris Hoofnagle, West Coast director of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, or EPIC. "It's almost no longer a surprise when the company
announces some new way to profile people."

Here's how the proposed system works, according to Amazon's patent claim:
Amazon would gather information about gift recipients, including their
names, addresses and items customers send them. The system would then try
to guess their gender, age and the gift-giving occasion based on the type
of present, messages written in gift cards, dates gifts are ordered, items
on wish lists, and commentary in related consumer reviews.

The system appears particularly geared toward people buying gifts for
children, with its ability to recommend "age appropriate" gifts. For
instance, the message, "Suggested Toys and Books That Would Bring A Smile
To Joseph Doe, age 2!" may greet a registered customer who visits Amazon in
the future, according to the patent claim.

The prospect of child profiling is particularly troubling in light of
recent high-profile cases of criminal data theft at ChoicePoint, Bank of
America and Reed Elsevier Group's LexisNexis service. The practice may even
run afoul of online child protection laws, advocate groups said.

"There's no guarantee that there won't be some disastrous privacy invasion
coming out of this," said Karen Coyle, a spokeswoman for Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility. "That's a very big risk to take
with children."

Coyle's organization, EPIC and a number of other like-minded groups filed a
complaint with the Federal Trade Commission a couple of years ago alleging
Amazon's online toy store and children's reviews violate the federal
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. COPPA makes it illegal
for Web sites to collect information from children under the age of 13
without the consent of a parent.

The FTC rejected the claim a few months ago. But this new system, if put
into practice, could bring a fresh round of COPPA-related complaints
against the company, said Jason Catlett, founder of Junkbusters, a consumer
watchdog.

Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith downplayed concerns, saying the company
wouldn't do anything to violate COPPA and that all the hand-wringing is
premature.

"When we submitted the patent application, we tried to be as
forward-thinking as possible as to how we might apply the technology, but
it's not something we're currently doing," she said. "It's all
hypothetical."

Even if the system doesn't violate COPPA, it involves a level of snooping
that's just plain creepy, some advocates said. Particularly worrisome is
the fact that people wouldn't even have to shop at Amazon for the company
to have a profile on them.

"They are building a speculative profile on you before you even know you're
dealing with them, because someone sends you a gift," Catlett said.
"They're guessing who knows what about you."

Catlett's group has unsuccessfully lobbied Amazon to let customers see
their complete profiles and delete them if they ask. He would also like the
online retailer to agree to never sell customer data under any
circumstances.

He's particularly dismayed by the prospect of Amazon monitoring customer
reviews for marketing purposes.

"This is a classic example of how a lack of privacy protection chills
speech in public," Catlett said. "People will hesitate to publish reviews
if they know the result is to enlarge their profile in some secret
marketing database."



------ End of Forwarded Message


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/