Amazon’s Shopping Preferences Reveal Surprisingly Personal Assumptions
Shoppers are sharing the sometimes startling descriptions Amazon uses to personalize their accounts, from everyday interests to guesses about their bodies and relationships.
Amazon shoppers are discovering that the company’s personalization settings contain descriptions of them inferred from their shopping activity. A Threads post about one particularly personal assumption drew widespread attention, prompting other customers to check and share what Amazon thinks it knows about them, according to The Verge and TechCrunch.
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A shopping profile gets attention
The discussion began after a customer found that Amazon had described her as someone who “has flat buttocks.” TechCrunch identified the customer as Threads user @fangirlinmegan and reported that her post received more than a million views in less than a day. The Verge said the post led to a wave of others sharing descriptions they found in their own accounts.
TechCrunch reported that the same customer’s profile also included more routine assumptions, such as shopping in women’s departments and probably owning a Shark robot vacuum. She suggested that her purchase of “butt scrunch leggings” might explain the more pointed description, though the reports do not establish how Amazon arrived at it.
What the descriptions say
The examples shared by shoppers range from interests to intimate-sounding judgments. According to The Verge, some users found descriptions suggesting they do not trust people easily, cannot keep real plants alive or have no friends. Another said Amazon described them as treating cats like biological children. The Verge’s writer, by contrast, found descriptions about keeping aquariums, drinking coffee and playing video games, which the writer said were accurate.
TechCrunch’s writer found descriptions about photography, collectible card games and an interest in Apple products. Colleagues saw references to vinyl records, ceramics and clothing that prioritizes comfort. Together, the examples show how a feature intended to personalize shopping can present customers with assumptions that feel either familiar or unexpectedly personal.
How shoppers can check
Both outlets point readers to Amazon’s Shopping preferences, but describe slightly different desktop routes to the list. The Verge says shoppers can open their account menu, choose “Your Shopping preferences” and then select “About You”; it says the details shown there can be edited or deleted. TechCrunch says desktop users can open “Your Shopping preferences” under “Ordering and shopping preferences,” scroll down and select “Manage your information.”
For the mobile app, TechCrunch gives the route as the bottom-menu icon, followed by Account, Shopping preferences and About you. The descriptions are Amazon’s assumptions, not necessarily facts about the people whose accounts display them.
Sources
This story was compiled by AI from the reports below. Read the originals for the full details.