Amazon About You feature reveals inferred personal attributes

Amazon’s ‘About You’ personalization feature has drawn scrutiny after users discovered the platform uses shopping data to make sensitive and highly personal inferences about their physical characteristics and lifestyles.

Launched in May, the feature allows customers to inspect and modify the information Amazon uses to shape shopping recommendations. The data is derived from various sources, including purchase history, product searches, reviews, saved lists, and Alexa for Shopping interactions. While the tool is intended to provide transparency and control, users have reported finding unexpected and blunt labels generated by the system’s algorithms.

Reported inferences include physical descriptions such as ‘has flat buttocks’ or ‘husband has skinny legs,’ as well as lifestyle assumptions like ‘cannot keep real plants alive’ or ‘treats cats as biological children.’ These labels are interpretations of customer behavior rather than data directly entered by the user. Amazon’s profiling system uses account information, search history, and device interactions to predict consumer preferences, typically maintaining profile data for up to 13 months.