They can guess a whole lot from that much. If you buy a lot of parenting books, and toys, and children’s sizes in clothing, and Spongebob videos, they’re going to assume you’re a parent (and probably assume you’re the mother of young children). You might not be, that’s true; but *in aggregate* the assumption will work well enough for something like gift suggestions.

Also–if you write Amazon reviews of products you didn’t buy on Amazon, they can add that to the guessing bin; and they can scan for keywords in your review (“son,” “daughter,” “husband”). They can also link your purchases and your reviews with your wishlist to get more ideas about who you are. It’s not because they care about YOU as an individual; they’re just looking for trends (as in “folks who buy this tend to also buy this, and want this as a gift”).

I thought this was all pretty obvious to most Amazon users. Don’t other people get hilariously wrong or surprisingly right “you may also like” suggestions on their welcome page?

I would say more but Ellen got to it before I did.

The one that is most interesting to me is the “college student” one. It seems to assume (from the “compact stereo”) that a college student naturally lives in a dorm. But I have never lived in a dorm in my entire college career and I’d say about half of the student body at my current university now lives in university-sponsored apartments that are apparently quite nice. There are other stereotypes in there too (like, why is the picture a Wii wheel but there is no Wii product in the short list? Do video games automatically equal college students?) but that’s what leaped out at me.

By sniping at the “stereotypes” reflected on the page, you are actually critizing the buyers themselves. Amazon serves those lists based on aggregated consumer purchase statistics.

You appear to be confusing cause and effect, something this blog does a lot.

It’s interesting that you define sociology as “preaching to the choir” and then think that you’re “defending” it.

To assume that because it is being marketed, that there has been market research that shows it works, is quite a stretch. If you have ever worked at a corporation, you understand that very little market research actually happens.

As far as whether or not amazon is promoting sales or “indulging in stereotyping” isn’t that simple. It’s a reciprocal relationship. Some people like their stereotypes. It makes the world make sense. And it might even get them to buy a product to help them enact a role that was partly ascribed to them by society and partly chosen. But they learn how to enact that role somewhere. And many it is from the media. So it is an endless cycle really. And those of us who like sociology find it interesting.

Damn I get so tired of defending the sociology on this blog!

Amazon executives don’t meet behind closed doors with an agenda of blindly rattling off gender stereotypes – it’s an objective process of informed marketing based on what actual groups of people are actually buying.

People are not always victims of external stereotyping, most especially when it comes to materialism – they not only stereotype themselves, but other consumers (one might call this ‘internal’ stereotyping) to inform their purchases because they want to be seen as ‘trendy’ and ‘in.’

So, in short: you’ve got it somewhat backwards. Amazon is not stereotyping consumers; the consumers are stereotyping themselves and Amazon is reflecting it.