I recently have posted about privacy issues and search logs on Google History so you know by now that I am somewhat concerned about how privacy issue gets worked out over time on the web. I recently ran across a blog where I saw something quite surprising. It showed a badge on the page saying "hello Kurt Krake...(linked here as a live example) sponsored by the Amazon Honor System. Now I thought I had seen everything on the web but this one took me by surprise. I was on a random blog forwarded to me by a friend and yet Amazon knew I was there and had content - my name (!!) - render on the blog. Big Brother?
Two things come to mind when I see this happen:
1. Why would a site owner put this on their site and freak out a visitor? Amazon Honor System is intended to collect micropayments for websites trying to make a few pennies and recover cost. I went hunting for what kind of sites had posted this badge on their site and for the most part, I found 3rd tier blogs showing it. Google shows 1.6 million web pages on exact matching the phrase "Amazon Honor System". Most sites were using it as a sort of online tip jar which (makes sense to me) and had been smart enough to remove the default setting of showing the browser's name. I was surprised to find a handful of larger sites like CouponSurfer using the badge. ADVICE: If you are a website owner with the badge, make sure you set the software to not show someone's name. The text can be customized to your particular site's content.
2. Why would Amazon make it so in-your-face that they are able to track you across the web? In the "Google is all knowing" day and age (ie. search history being routinely used now in murder prosecutions), I would think that Amazon would run from this like the plague. Privacy issues are radioactive. Every large web property today is capable of this tracking in some form but to display it openly and display a browser's name is simply too much. I see this effort as damage to the Amazon brand.
What I discovered is that this service has been in place since February 2001 per Wired Magazine and is probably an idea that got concocted when the Dot Com world was in complete freefall. It made it through the "thats a great idea" meetings at Amazon then but would be slapped away in heartbeat today. Hopefully Amazon has not forgotten that they are out there doing this and freaking users out!
