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Parents putting together baby registries on Amazon have begun to notice a pesky problem, one that has resulted in parents receiving items they neither listed nor wanted. The online retailer has been placing sponsored products in baby registries, the Wall Street Journal reports, but because the ads look so similar to other registry items, people are purchasing them, unaware that the items weren't added to the registry by parents. Like added items, the sponsored products include an image, rating, price and a "0 of 1 Purchased" tag. The only thing that distinguishes them is a small, gray "Sponsored" label situated just above the item name.
[...] One new dad told the Wall Street Journal that he only realized Amazon had placed sponsored products in his baby registry when the Aveeno bath-time set arrived at his home. He said the ads were "blatantly trying to trick you." "Worst part is a friend spent money on something we didn't want. And Amazon profited," he added. While users can remove these ads from their registries, Amazon reportedly told advertisers that around 60 percent were left in place.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/11/28/amazon-inserting-sponsored-products-baby-registries/
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday November 29 2018, @05:19PM (4 children)
It became apparent to me that Amazon is a psychopath when they suggested a product for teen-age girls that uses a webcam to analyze their outfits, tells them how cool they were, and what Amazon products they can buy that helps make them even more cool.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Freeman on Thursday November 29 2018, @05:27PM
Apparently I've never heard of that product and would assume it would open one up to serious legal troubles. Unless, those pictures aren't actually going anywhere and are analyzed locally on their own machine. Then again, I have things called ethics and morals, which get in the way of "Great Business Opportunities!"
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @07:10PM
Sounds like "My Little Camera" - less pony, more perv.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday November 29 2018, @08:08PM (1 child)
From what I understand that product is "outfit compare" and it doesn't sell stuff. Merely an A/B testing "hot or not" which supposedly is not public. Honestly I think its more a demo for Mechanical Turk than a real feature.
Its funny that every mass media story including actual footage of the product always involves messy bedrooms in the background, Jordan Peterson would not be amused. Because of my military background I never lived like a filthy hoarder or maybe living in filth was less acceptable in my generation, now tell those kids to get off my lawn and put their dirty underwear in the laundry hamper like a civilized beast. Just pointing out a little research into the product is both informative (as per above) and also sometimes very funny.
I'm not disagreeing with you WRT psychopath etc, although I am disagreeing in some minor details.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Friday November 30 2018, @12:21AM
Thanks for the comment - those little details matter! Though it's pretty obvious that someone at Amazon is paying a firm to analyze the market to figure out when it'll be socially acceptable enough they can flip that "sells stuff" bit for the product.