Every customer purchase made through Amazon that is FBA results in the customer's name and address being made available to a 3rd party.
Often Amazon customers do not realize that their purchases result in this information sharing, and since control of the Buy Box shifts constantly there is no obvious way to be informed about this or choose which businesses to exclude.
It is possible to own the Buy Box for a very personal adult item by selling a product at a loss. This allows the creation of highly targeted list building right now.
This list can be used to identify individuals and to purchase of consumer data covering demographic, psychographic, social media and credit rating.
In this way, Amazon offers virtually anyone the keystone to linking the confirmed purchases of its unwitting customers with the broadest array of private data available.
Regardless of the ToS around this data, I suspect a tangible demonstration of the improper use of this data will occur. When that happens, it will be compared to the way Cambridge Analytica exploited accessible but ToS-protected PII from Facebook.
...This is not even close to a "privacy" violation.
When you buy something from a store, they get that information without Amazon in the middle by default (billing address, shipping address, CC info). As a seller, you want this information so you can see who is buying your product and optimize around that, in the same way that as a buyer, you want the most information possible about the product and competing alternatives.
Also, Amazon can and does kick sellers off for abusing data.
Meanwhile, when you buy an iPhone or Macbook, from the moment it gets an internet connection it starts phoning home sending tracking info on you, with no way to disable it. And its absolutely silly to be ok with Apple collecting data but not any other 3d party - from your perspective, Apple is 3d party, and if you trust them with your data despite a history of violations, then you probably don't really care about privacy as much as you think.
Often Amazon customers do not realize that their purchases result in this information sharing, and since control of the Buy Box shifts constantly there is no obvious way to be informed about this or choose which businesses to exclude.
It is possible to own the Buy Box for a very personal adult item by selling a product at a loss. This allows the creation of highly targeted list building right now.
This list can be used to identify individuals and to purchase of consumer data covering demographic, psychographic, social media and credit rating.
In this way, Amazon offers virtually anyone the keystone to linking the confirmed purchases of its unwitting customers with the broadest array of private data available.
Regardless of the ToS around this data, I suspect a tangible demonstration of the improper use of this data will occur. When that happens, it will be compared to the way Cambridge Analytica exploited accessible but ToS-protected PII from Facebook.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/as-an-fba-seller-d...