Similarly, other data requests to Amazon show how Kindle logs the date, time spent reading, and how often you copy or highlight parts of books. “The values concern the day and time when a specific page is visited, the IP address and the device used, the geolocation – if possible – based on the IP address, and the name of the telecommunication company that offers the internet service,” he wrote in 2018. Freelance journalist Riccardo Coluccini was sent a table with 12,048 rows detailing all the clicks he made on Amazon’s website. This is all data about how and when you use Amazon products. The automatic information Amazon collects is where things get a bit more creepy. Every order you place on Amazon, every show you watch on Prime, every song you listen to on Amazon Music and every request you make of Alexa is tracked and stored.Īmazon’s privacy policy says you might – depending on your settings and how much you’ve decided hand over – give it: your name address and phone number bank details age location the names, emails and addresses of people in your contacts any photographs you’ve uploaded to your profile playlists watchlists wishlists voice recordings Wi-Fi credentials credit history information and, if you sell items on Amazon, VAT and other business information. You should assume that everything you do on Amazon’s website, apps or any of its products is saved in some way. Let’s look at the information you give to Amazon. These are: the data you give it when you use Amazon (and its other services, such as reading Kindle books), the data it can collect automatically (information about your phone and your location) and, finally, information it gets from third-parties (credit checks to find out if your account is fraudulent, for example).
Broadly, the information that Amazon collects about you comes from three sources. At more than 4,400 words it’s hardly surprising that most people don't read it, but it does clearly lay out what Amazon does with your data. Let’s start with Amazon’s privacy notice. And governments are demanding more data from Amazon, including information from Ring and Alexa recordings. Anti-competition regulators are also looking at the company’s use of data. On June 10, the Wall Street Journal reported data protection regulators in Luxembourg, where Amazon’s European headquarters is based, are preparing a $425 million GDPR fine in response to the way it uses people’s personal data – although no specific details were provided and an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the potential fine. And now Amazon is moving into healthcare – something that Nelson says is concerning.Īmazon’s data collection is also reportedly putting it on the wrong side of regulators. “The company is in a position to collect huge amounts of data – through its shopping platform, but also through its Ring cameras, Alexa voice assistants, web services, delivery services, streaming services, and its many other business streams”. “The reason online shopping through Amazon is so convenient is because the company has spent years consolidating its power and reach,” says Sara Nelson, director of the corporate data exploitation programme at civil liberties group Privacy International.
People who have requested their data from Amazon have been sent hundreds of files, including a decade of their shopping history and thousands of voice clips recorded by Alexa devices. It’s a lot of data – and that’s just the beginning of it. Everything you do in Amazon’s ecosystem: from the thousands of searches you make on its app or website to every individual click, scroll and mouse movement you make.
“They happen to sell products, but they are a data company,” a former Amazon executive told the BBC in 2020.Īmazon knows a lot about you. And, as Amazon has expanded, so has its data collection operation. Almost two decades ago the firm’s chief technology officer, Werner Vogels, said that the company tries to “collect as much information as possible” so it can provide people with recommendations. While Amazon’s retail empire is built on a complex web of infrastructure and murky working practices, its selling success is based on an intricate knowledge of what millions of people buy and browse every day.Īmazon has been obsessed with your data since it was an online bookshop. Jeff Bezos has a hidden weapon: your data.
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