Bizarre "You might also like" suggestions from Amazon

It appears if you look up the Welsh cheese “red dragon,” Amazon thinks you might want to eat that while reading The Initiation: A Billionaire Gangbang on your Kindle.

Apparently, if even one other person has ordered that cheese and that ebook, even if the person ordered the items separately, Amazon’s software thinks that you, too, are interested in both items.

I’ve ordered kids’ things, because I have nieces and nephews, including some pretty stereotypically girly stuff. Amazon kept insisting that I’d probably like the Disney Princess brand of everything. Not just movies, but dolls, sheets, playsets…if it was marketed as a Disney Princess item, it was suggested to me. And I got a lot of suggestions for Barbie merchandise, too.

I don’t know whether I hate Barbie or Disney Princess more.

I bought a used Organic Chemistry textbook for my daughter on Amazon this August. Amazon now suggests that same textbook, in various editions, every time I log on.

FWIW - and if anyone cares - you can tell amazon to ignore a specific purchase.

I’ve told this before, but for some reason Amazon once thought I would want a book entitled something like “The Art of Vaginal Fisting”. Thanks, Amazon.

Some merchants are more aggressive than that. If I look for anything musical on any site, soon Sweetwater Sound puts ads on many different sites I visit, showing similar products for weeks. I think there may be some cross-fertilization thru Google or Amazon.

doesn’t seem worth it’s own thread but lately I’ve been wondering what happened to Amazon’s listmania and “so you want to” lists. they are still there, but not like they used to be.

or so it seems to me. used to be when I was looking at books it lead to me tons of lists people had made and I could happily browse them for hours.

:confused:

The one I still can’t get over is when they recommend the exact item I’m looking at. Also, is it so difficult to check that they do not recommend stuff I’ve already bought or placed in my basket?

I sell used books on Amazon, and so I search up a lot of odd titles (to see if they are worth buying for resale). I buy more gifts for others than items for myself from Amazon. The suggestions based on search and purchase history are completely worthless for my personal tastes, and I have ignored them for at least three years.

Did you enjoy it? :wink:

I showed my husband how to get rid of suggestions after his experience buying gifts last Christmas. His family does a “Give one, get one” approach to gift giving, and his recipient was his nephew. His nephew has what one might call…eccentric tastes, and almost a year later, Amazon was still suggesting things to my husband based on those purchases. Every once in a while he would be at the computer and I would hear him mutter, “Fucking Amazon. Fucking <nephew>.”

I care. How?

I’m not proud. Show me.

When you first log into Amazon, scroll down past the list of items you have recently viewed. There will be a link on the left side that says “view or edit your browsing history”. That gives you a list of every item you’ve clicked on, and you can delete it on the right.
In fact, there is also an option to sort by category, delete your entire browsing history, and turn off browsing history.

I can’t wait to see what recommendations pop up after my last session. I browsed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Swiss Army knives, and the books The Heroin Diaries and Wonderland Avenue, both of which are about hard-core heroin addictions. Amazon must think I’m a crazy, strung out, suicidal junkie.

Also, when you get recommended an item, there’s a link somewhere on the recommendation that says “Why was this recommended to me?”, which will show you the particular items that triggered it. Then, on those, you can click “Don’t use this for recommendations”.

Everything that’s coming up for me is stuff that you guys linked to over the past few days.

These are good suggestions, but the best way to see your history (especially your purchase history) and turn off these recommendations is to go to “Your Amazon.com” and click on “Improve Your Recommendations” (it will be in a string of links across the top of the page, just under the search box). This will bring up the “Edit Your Collection” page where you have the option of displaying “Items You’ve Purchased”, “Items You’ve Marked ‘I Own It’”, “Items You’ve Rated”, etc. You can rate each item, or check either the “This was a gift” or “Don’t use for recommendations” checkbox to prevent the recommendation engine from using it in their algorithm.

I ordered fragrance-free bubble bath, because of my allergies, and it kept recommending baby products for me. I ain’t got no baby. When it told me I needed a Snotsucker® nasal aspirator, that’s when I finally arsed myself to go in and fixed the history.

I bought a CD of brass band music, and it told me I needed a box of red rubber noses. I swear this is true. I am pretty sure that it is because there were several cuts of circus music on the CD, like “Entrance of the Gladiators.”

But doesn’t EVERYONE need a box of red rubber noses? You never know when a situation will arise that desperately calls out for a clown nose.

Never mind Amazon. I’d keep a sharp eye out for the FBI if I were you.

Maybe you need a rubber nose to throw them off? I hear Lynn has a few spares.

I’ve always said Amazon needs a blanket “Do Not Recommend” option. That way I could black-list games, certain authors, calenders and other such nonsense from every cluttering my browsing. As it is every time I order something I have to spend the next few days clearing out the bogus recs Amazon sends.