Amazon seeks to know you better than you know yourself

Article from Global technology

Amazon.com Inc.has one potentially big advantage over its rival on-line retailers: It knows things about you that you may not know yourself.While plenty of companies have detailed systems for tracking customer habits, critics and boosters alike say Amazon is the trailblazer, having collected information longer and used it more actively. It even received a patent recently on technology aimed at tracking information about the people for whom its customers buy gifts.

Amazon sees such data gathering as the best way to keep customers happy and loyal, a relationship-building technique that analysts consider potentially crucial to beating other on-line competitors.

"In general, we collect as much information as possible such that we can provide [customers] with the best feedback," said Werner Vogels, Amazon's chief technology officer.

But some privacy advocates believe Amazon is getting dangerously close to becoming Big Brother with your credit card number.

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