Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @06:20PM (1 child)
They lost me already. I don't do business with amazon any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @04:55AM
When they listed my book as "out of print" because of a quarrel with my publisher, I vowed to never buy anything from them (the book was in print, but Amazon demanded better terms than every other bookseller).
That was coming up on 20 years ago and I haven't bought from them yet. Although, some eBay purchases have been fulfilled by Amazon, not announced at purchasing time.