Amazon pays you to know what you didn't buy from them

Science fiction? Dystopia? Well no, it's the simple reality. Recently, Amazon launched a new data collection program that directly reaches out to consumers to question them about their needs and purchasing priorities. It is an initiative of Amazon.com, therefore American, called Amazon Shopper Panel.

What is the Amazon Shopper Panel?

Imagine a large chain of shopping malls ask you for the receipts for purchases you have made outside its circuit to understand what you buy when you are not with them. And imagine he even pays you to do it. Well, on Amazon.com that's exactly what's happening.

Amazon Shopper Panel asks you to send 10 receipts per month for any purchases you have not made on Amazon, including in retail stores, grocery stores, franchises, tobacconists, and entertainment areas such as theaters, theme parks, and restaurants.

Participants can use their iOS or Android system to fPhotograph the valid receipts and send them to a specific email address to earn a $10 reward that will be added to their Amazon balance. The program also provides users with the ability to earn additional rewards each month for all the surveys they complete. The surveys, completely optional, will probe the interests of consumers regarding certain brands, and how much they would be willing to buy a certain product. Other surveys, on the other hand, ask quite directly what a consumer thinks of a certain advertisement or another.

The program is based on an invite system and open only in the United States of America, but who knows. Maybe one day it will come here too. Participants can download the specific App and use it to get their reserved Amazon bonuses. If they failed to enter the program on time, they will be placed on a special waiting list.

What about privacy?

Amazon claims that will erase any sensitive information contained in the loaded receipts, such as for example any purchases of medicines. What it will not delete, however, is the user's personal information, which will be kept in compliance with current policy. Users will be able to cancel their receipts at any time.

How will Amazon use the data collected?

Many similar initiatives are born every year. The difference with that of Amazon, however, is the way in which the data will be used to improve the selection of products and selected contents – such as those of Prime Video, for example.

Amazon will collect the data in order to help the marketing of the various products and how to exploit it appropriately for the media in question. Amazon will choose to offer the collected data to the various brands, to help them get the feedback they need so badly to achieve the desired success on products that already exist or are planning to launch.

The campaign was launched shortly after Amazon stormed over how it operated in the US and abroad, and the "unclear" way it processed personal data. The giant has been criticized for selling user data to third parties, in a completely unauthorized way. However, the resulting trial failed to determine whether there had actually been any violations of the terms of the contract, but now the problem lies in the antitrust laws that are being enacted to regulate its excessive power.