Amazon's 'About You' page shows shoppers the oddly specific traits it infers from their purchases

The findings circulated on Threads after one user posted that Amazon had concluded from her purchases that she "has flat buttocks," prompting other users to share the descriptions attached to their own accounts. Among the entries users reported were "doesn't trust people easily," "cusses when scared," "cannot keep real plants alive" and "finds it hilarious when toys get stuck to ceiling tiles in the classroom."

Many of the descriptions are ordinary rather than pointed. The Verge reporter said their own page described them as maintaining "active aquarium systems," regularly consuming coffee and playing video games regularly, descriptions the reporter said were accurate. The article characterized the overall list as reading less like a roast than a set of mostly generic shopping signals.

Amazon has long collected purchase history to power product recommendations, but the page in question shows the traits themselves rather than only the products behind them. To view the entries, a user selects the account icon in the top-right corner of the screen, scrolls to the "Your Account" section and clicks "Your Shopping preferences." Scrolling down that page and selecting "About You" opens the list of details Amazon uses to personalize the account, each of which can be edited or deleted.

The page therefore functions both as a disclosure of what the retailer has inferred and as a control panel for correcting it. Users quoted in the report did not describe receiving any explanation of how individual traits were derived from particular purchases.