How would you rate the privacy protections available to individuals who purchase items through Amazon.com? How safe are similar data of individuals who have never purchased an item through Amazon.com?
These days an online merchant is likely to have a privacy policy posted on its site that de-scribes, among other things, what data it collects and how they are used. For example, Amazon.com’s Privacy Notice states “Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others.”47 The information it automatically collects includes “login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type, version, and time-zone setting, browser plug- in types and versions, operating system, and platform; purchase history .; the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) click stream to, through, and from our website, including date and time; cookie number; and products you viewed or searched for.” It also receives information such as “account information, purchase or redemption information, and page-view information from some merchants with which we operate co-branded businesses.” A partial list of such businesses includes “Starbucks, OfficeMax, American Apparel, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T- Mobile, AT& T, J& R Electronics, PacSun, Eddie Bauer and Northern Tool + Equipment.” The Notice further acknowledges that its site includes third-party advertising and links to other websites. It then states, “We do not have access to or control over cookies or other features that advertisers and third party sites may use, and the information practices of these advertisers and third-party websites are not covered by our Privacy Notice.”