Key facts
- Amazon's "About You" page infers personal details from customer data.
- The feature uses marketplace searches, purchase histories, saved lists, product reviews, and Alexa for Shopping conversations.
- Amazon states the goal is to connect customers with products that better fit their needs.
- Shoppers can update or remove details from their profile.
- Business Insider staff found profiles often correctly identified purchasing habits and pet ownership.
- Inferences about family size and relationship specifics were frequently incorrect.
Amazon's "About You" customer profiles, launched in May, are drawing attention for their often amusingly inaccurate inferences about users' lives. The feature compiles data from purchase histories, searches, saved lists, product reviews, and interactions with Alexa for Shopping to create a customer dossier.
While the profiles frequently get purchasing habits right, such as identifying pet ownership or grocery preferences at Whole Foods, they have also made bizarre and incorrect judgments. For example, one Business Insider editor's profile suggested he frequently buys beef jerky, despite his orders being primarily energy bars and vitamins. Another user's profile incorrectly stated their husband had "skinny legs," and one editor was misidentified as having a girlfriend named "Barry."
Despite some humorous missteps, many of Amazon's inferences proved correct for Business Insider staff. The profiles accurately clocked preferences for glass food storage, organic produce, and specific brands like Hot Wheels and Pokémon cards, often for children. Location and pet ownership were also commonly identified correctly. However, family size and certain relationship specifics were frequently off the mark.
Amazon states the "About You" page aims to connect customers with products that better fit their needs, and users have the ability to update or remove details from their profiles.