SCN: Amazon and privacy

Mon Sep 25 17:32:46 PDT 2000

x-no-archive: yes

======================

(Ed Foster, InfoWorld)---They know where you live. They know what 
you buy, where you go, and maybe even your friends. In fact, as 
they've made quite clear with the recent changes to their privacy 
policy, Amazon.com thinks they own you.  

Earlier this month, readers began reporting that they'd received a 
message from Amazon informing them of unspecified changes to 
Amazon's privacy policy. After trying to read through the new policy 
and its many associated documents, few could be sure just what 
had changed from the old policy, but many spotted various areas of 
concern. Several readers opined that there didn't seem to be much 
Amazon couldn't do under the new policy.  

"The privacy policy artfully obscures the fact that it imposes no 
restrictions at all on [Amazon's] behavior," wrote one reader. "A 
large notice at the top [saying] 'We can do whatever we want with 
your information as long as we first say what we will do,' would be 
more to the point."  

"Amazon used to give you the option of writing to 
never at amazon.com so they'd never share your personal 
information with a third party," wrote another reader. "What's 
happened to that? It looks like they can share your information with 
anyone now, and you don't have an option to say no."  

Early reports about the new privacy policy focused on one particular 
term saying customer information would be one of the transferred 
assets "in the unlikely event that Amazon.com" is acquired by 
another company. That certainly deserves to be a point of 
controversy because it means Amazon customers won't be entitled 
to the same protection that privacy watchdogs argued Toysmart.com 
customers deserved when the online retailer liquidated its assets 
this year.  

The more I studied Amazon's new privacy policy, the clearer it 
became how that particular issue is something of a red herring. Just 
before the "unlikely event" provision, the policy states quite boldly 
that customer information is a business asset of Amazon's and that 
the company can buy and sell assets as it chooses while "we 
continue to develop our business." And the promise in Amazon's old 
privacy policy that they would not "sell, trade, or rent your personal 
information" was replaced by a provision claiming the right to share 
customer information with "affiliated businesses" -- virtually any 
company with which Amazon has dealings.  

And what kind of customer information can Amazon buy, sell, or 
otherwise transfer? Cleverly enough, this is detailed in secondary 
documents -- not the main policy. Information that is collected about 
you includes your e-mail address, postal address, telephone 
number, credit card information, social security number, driver's 
license number, purchase history, products you've searched for, 
your URL clickstream to and from Amazon's site, e-mail addresses 
of those on your Trusted Friends list, and people, including their 
addresses and phone numbers, to whom you've shipped purchases. 
It appears that even information about people who aren't customers 
can become Amazon's assets.  

Amazon spokesman Bill Curry argues that I am not interpreting the 
new privacy policy correctly. "The policy says very clearly that 
Amazon is not in the business of selling information about its 
customers," he says. "In the classic mail-order marketing sense, the 
list is not for sale." Under the policy, Curry points out, Amazon can 
share information related to the transaction only with business 
affiliates -- otherwise it must get each customer's consent.  

Curry adds that Amazon no longer needs a "never" address -- but it 
will honor people who signed up while it existed -- because the 
company has removed any doubt about what it might and might not 
share in the future. "The new policy is more stringent than the old 
one, because previously we said we might choose to share 
information in the future," Curry says. "We've removed the 
uncertainty, so 'never' goes away."  

I can agree the uncertainty is gone, but only because I think it's 
certain that Amazon will do as it pleases. I could argue point by 
point where the loopholes are in the restrictions Curry says Amazon 
is imposing on itself, but it's not worth the effort. Why not? Because 
this new one could change at any time. It contains a pointed 
sneakwrap term: "Our business changes constantly," it reads. "This 
Notice and the Conditions of Use will change also, and use of 
information that we gather now is subject to the Privacy Notice in 
effect at the time of use."  

Got that? The information they gather now is subject to the privacy 
policy in effect, then.  

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