Amazon customers are discovering that its 'About You' feature can display surprisingly personal assumptions about them, with some shoppers finding descriptions that go far beyond ordinary product preferences.
The revelations emerged after Threads user Megan Montgomery shared a screenshot of her Amazon 'About You' page, saying she had found 'a page of assumptions that Amazon has made about me' and was 'literally speechless'.
Among the observations was one particularly blunt assessment: 'Has flat buttocks.' Montgomery responded with humour, writing, 'I mean it ain't wrong but damn did you have to call me out like that?' Her post then drew widespread attention, prompting other Amazon customers to check their own profiles and share what the retailer had inferred.
The examples range from ordinary hobbies and purchasing habits to comments about appearance, relationships and oddly specific behaviour.
Amazon says the feature is designed to personalise shopping, but its sudden visibility has given customers an unusual look at some of the information and preferences Amazon says it uses to personalise their shopping experience.
Do Amazon 'About You' Profiles Make Personal Assumptions?
The most revealing part of the discovery is that Amazon's 'About You' section is not simply a record of what someone has bought.
The company says the personalisation system can use purchase history, searches, product reviews, saved Lists and conversations with Alexa for Shopping to understand a customer's preferences. The feature then presents some of those details directly to the customer.
That has produced some remarkably specific descriptions. Screenshots shared online included claims that a customer 'has no friends' and another that the shopper was a 'fifty-year-old man'.
Other examples included an assessment that someone had not 'worn a medium size in anything in years' and another describing a customer as having 'a stomach that hangs over their vagina'. Those statements are presented here as examples posted by individual users, rather than independently verified descriptions of those people.
Some of the stranger entries are less insulting but arguably more revealing. One customer discovered Amazon believed they 'Uses phone in the shower to read Kindle books'.
The shopper confirmed that the habit was accurate, but still responded, 'I mean yes but wtf'. Other profiles reportedly contained observations such as 'likes brunettes with muscles', 'cannot keep real plants alive' and 'treats cats as biological children'.
Some Reddit users have also reported that their profiles appeared to contain details drawn from reviews they had previously written. Another user said the system had made surprisingly specific assumptions from individual purchases.
Such reports suggest that some entries may be inaccurate or may appear to be based on limited information, although the underlying process for generating individual entries is not publicly detailed.
How To Find Your Amazon 'About You' Profile
Amazon introduced About You as a way for customers to see and manage the information used to personalise their shopping experience.
The company says users can update individual details, provide feedback or remove information they do not want used for personalisation. It also says the feature is available through Amazon's shopping app, mobile web and desktop site.
On desktop, Amazon's current instructions say to hover over your name near 'Account & Lists', click your name or select a shopping profile, and then choose 'About You'. On mobile, the company directs users through the Me tab, their name and then 'About You'.
That means customers do not have to rely on viral screenshots to see what appears on their profiles. They can inspect the profile themselves, update individual details and remove information they do not want used for personalisation.
The episode also shows how companies can use accumulated customer behaviour to personalise digital services and make predictions about consumer preferences.
A recent WIRED report, for example, described how reporter Reece Rogers received a 515-page data file from McDonald's containing transaction records and algorithmic predictions about his future visits and spending. McDonald's said it uses information such as past purchases to provide personalised offers and messages.
Amazon's About You feature therefore offers something unusual: a direct glimpse at some of the preferences and personal details its systems associate with a customer's shopping activity.
The funny entries may be the ones people share online, but the more useful takeaway is that customers can now see, update and remove at least some of the information on their profiles.
