What Amazon’s Profiles Got Right and Wrong About Us

Amazon thinks Thomas Gryta actually likes beef jerky. He would not actually know why.

“I’ve ordered extra power bars and nutritional vitamins than jerky,” Enterprise Insider’s interim company editor wrote in Slack. He added that his Amazon “About You” buyer profile “seems like a judgy accusation from a nutritionist.”

That was simply one of many messages that blew up Enterprise Insider’s Slack on Wednesday morning after I reported that folks on-line had been having a subject day trying up their very own Amazon “About You” page. Folks observed the purchasing profiles making weird — typically unflattering — judgments, like telling one Amazon person they’ve “flat buttocks” or one other that their husband has “skinny legs.“

The e-commerce big launched About You in Might. The web page acts a bit like a buyer file, pulling data from clients’ market searches, buy histories, saved lists, product opinions, and conversations with Amazon’s Alexa for Purchasing assistant. Amazon says the aim is to attach clients with merchandise that higher match their wants, and consumers can replace or take away particulars from the profile.

Naturally, Enterprise Insider’s nosy reporters with semi-voyeuristic relationships with the web needed to share what we discovered about ourselves, whether or not brutally correct or laughably off base.

Per our personal Slack channels, we discovered that Amazon sometimes made 30 to 45-ish observations for every topic. These inferences regularly received the transactions proper, however the human conclusions had been typically a bit off.

“My spouse and I share an Amazon account, so our ‘About You’ profile was a bit warped,” wrote Paul Squire, our deputy editor of homepage and programming, noting that Amazon appropriately gleaned that he has a cat and a MacBook. “However it missed the mark by not realizing our second cat, Sylvie, even exists. ‘Has one cat’? Strive once more, Jeff Bezos.”

For Taylor Rains, a partnership editor, Amazon received a bit private about her style in film actors.

“Considered one of mine is: ‘used to love Ryan Reynolds, however not a lot anymore,'” she wrote on Wednesday. “How does it know?”

Nonetheless, the vast majority of Amazon’s judgments from our very unscientific newsroom ballot proved right.

Correspondent Madeline Berg stated Amazon correctly clocked that she was a stereotypical Brooklynite who prefers glass meals storage and natural produce.

Deputy government editor Taylor Berman stated his account is optimized for “toilet security,” a discovering possible tied to his want for a bathe chair after he tore his Achilles tendon final Might (he requested me to verify readers knew that his different purchases had been “very cool”).

One other editor, who has younger children, stated Amazon reported that she regularly buys waterproof sheets.

Debbie Sturdy, deputy government editor, stated the system clocked her as a “boy mother” after it stated she prefers Scorching Wheels toy vehicles.

Different massive themes: Amazon is superb at recognizing the place we dwell (no surprises there), what sorts of groceries we regularly purchase at Complete Meals, and if we’ve got pets. Apparently, Enterprise Insider’s employees likes to purchase a whole lot of books and Pokémon cards, too (many stated the playing cards had been for his or her children. Sureeeeee.)

Amazon’s crystal ball was much less good at deciphering household dimension. A number of individuals stated their About You web page incorrectly recognized what number of children they’d. Some relationship specifics had been off too. It incorrectly stated one editor had a girlfriend named “Barry.”

As for yours really, who is aware of what Amazon is aware of about me — I have never had an account for years. Like my colleagues, I can be uncomfortably forthcoming with my outcomes if that modifications.

Do you will have a comic story or screenshot to share out of your Amazon “About You” web page? Ship it to bshimkus@insider.com and we’d embrace it in an upcoming story!