Amazon - Great Service or Spam and TV cookies.

Usually I always check the box for "don't send me stuff" or "don't share my details" or "do don't never not share my details" or leave the box unchecked as appropriate - some times it takes a bit of working out !

ANYWAY

Amazon Do send me stuff and I knew it was going to happen (I didn't do what I usually do) - and it's ok.

First, I know someone who works over there (sorry I missed dinner last week) and he tells me that really they are lovely people (that's what you said right?). Second, sometimes I am actually interested in what they tell me, they know I bought X and thus I might like to buy Y. I mean this is a good thing right?

OK SO, you have a TV and in most places that means you get to watch advertisements (when you can't reach the remote) but you get to watch all those adverts for things you don't want to buy or don't care to much about - like washing powder or soap for hair. Then right about where the girl says "now for the science bit" you give in and start rummaging for the remote. Now imagine you only adverts for stuff you were remotely interested in - won't it be great - you get to make your programme provider (TV channel) money by actually watching their advertisements, not to mention what you'd save the batteries on the remote control. Of course my wife would go nuts watching ads for well ... I'm not sure actually - but I am pretty sure she wouldn't be interested in the adverts I'd be interested in - what ever those would be.
It would be like cookies for your TV !! Great !!

OK OK. I admit it it's a terrible idea, it's such an evil and terrible idea I hate that I thought of it. Not least to acknowledge that my wife is deeply affected by advertising - she tends to buy the damn stuff. I shudder to imagine what would happen if Mel was left in front of the "TV with cookies" for any period of time.
I mean, if such a device came in my TV I'd be the first with the screw driver out, and I'll have those cookies in crumbs in a flash. At the moment I am just a step away from buying a Windows Media Centre PC for under my TV or some kinda PVR/Tivo device so that I can pause live TV and skip the adverts all together! (One more soap for hair ad and a budget and I'm there!).

Despite TV Cookies being such a bad idea (And I still want the royalties when they do it) what Amazon do ISN'T such a bad idea. Today I got an email from Amazon telling me that since I bought some Julia Donaldson Books in the past they thought I might like to know that she has a new one out Hippo Has A Hat. I mean - yes, That's good to know - I MIGHT just buy it some time, soon, somewhere.

SO once you accept that Amazon are providing a good service and not sending spam you're on dodgy ground. This is directed marketing, they have profiled you and determined that you'd be a soft target for the product their pushing.
So now, how about regular cookies or user tracking on the web in general. I mean take a look at the Google ad that on the top right corner of this page. It's probably for some Irish web hosting or shampoo or something - it's worked out that your IP address is perhaps Irish or that this page is about shampoo and they decided to push some advertisement at you that they deemed relevant to this page. It's that so bad ? Would you prefer that the advert was about ... some dodgy "herbal remedy/chemical" that will do magical things to you body (you know the spam I mean) or "consolidate you loans for just $300 a month - not available in Kansas".

It's actually kinda a tough one. I'll leave it with this thought. I've been using the internet intensely since Gopher and Netscape 1.0 so like most experienced users I'm expert and doing the visual filtering that you need to ignore adverts on web pages - I'm sufficiently good at it that I don't bother with the fancy tools that do it for you. But recently I have found that I actually click sometimes - on purpose.

Thoughts? Use the comments !

Incidentally Julia Donaldson's books are great - here's a great big banner with some of her books - this is indiscriminate marketing. And yes I benefit if you buy based on this click!

We've the two "Gruffalo" ones the "Kindest Giant in town", "Room on the broom" (super) and the "The Monkey puzzel" (Missing), Can't think of any others we have.