Even if you look at your purchase history now they have intentionally destroyed that too. What size shoe did you buy 3 years ago? Too bad we are not telling you!
The purchase/shipped/etc email was the lifeline to tracking your Amazon spending and exactly what you bought. Now that is impossible. It's similar to a business refusing to give you a proper receipt and should be likely illegal.
What 3rd party companies I let hoover up my Amazon purchase emails is none of their business.
I went and looked at order confirmation emails from 2019 and confirmed my memory that back then they didn’t list what items I ordered (but did a few years before). At the time I figured this change was intended to fight against Paribus, a startup that would scan your email and automatically request compensation for late Amazon deliveries.
But then I looked at emails last year and Amazon was sending item names after order again. So it seems like this practice has changed multiple times.
I ascribed it to the likes of Google vacuuming all this data at scale from gmail service -- which Amazon actively wanted to avoid (gifting free data to Google to train on and potentially advertize Amazon-alternatives to via personalized/targetted ads based on purchase patterns and preferences)
I worked at Shopify during this period and their Shop app (the one that helpfully tracks your packages arriving) was a victim of these emails becoming vague.
At the time it felt like a specific reaction to Shopify mining this information to compete. (I have no insider knowledge if they were or were not).
Of course, the answer can be many things -- now it's AI, back then it was 17track, Google, Shopify, etc.
Good example of where user agents will need to be more proactive in areas like this to collect and store information useful to the user. In the accelerating "optimization" of online commerce (and discourse) more relations will become aggressively adversarial.
I wish there was a way to put another phone number under Account / Notifications / Shipping and delivery. Without adding somebody to a "household" or installing apps, I just want someone else to know a package was delivered, and it should be brought inside.
A better method that limits exposing information to Amazon is to set up forwarding rules with your email provider or client.
I recommend stop feeding the beast. Have not used Amazon in 10 years and never will. They are so big that they harm the buying power of the consumer and selling power of the producer. Personal knowledge gained while working with them.
Yeah, seriously. We keep being promised by these very empathetic and so honest tech CEOs (messages probably broadcasted from their bunkers) that all these AI tools will make life so much better for us, but so far for most things I use things have gotten worse - and I'm still trying to find affordable computer parts, which has been a total joke in the last year. Thankfully I bought my PS5 and Switch 2 before all the price creeping really started
After checking every box to never get any email from Amazon.com, I followed-up with a catch-all auto-delete rule for the domain. That was 10 years ago. I have experienced zero issues with their services. As a nice bonus, I'm immediately aware of anyone trying to phish me via Amazon orders.
I've been unsubscribing from a lot of mailing lists the past week because my email was getting cluttered.
I noticed many Amazon emails, not just the 'ads' but also the order confirmation, order shipped, rate your order, etc emails related to a purchase. Honestly, never look at any of them because I know most will arrive either same day or within the next 1-2 days and I don't care for rating my orders.
It's only when something hasn't arrived within that timeframe that I check the app/website, both of which are much more useful.
If your delivery is fulfilled by amazon, they'll ask if you want to send a "thanks" to your driver. My understanding is there are bonuses for good levels of "thanks" and so it's worth clicking though and giving them as much thanks as you can to help them out.
Even if you look at your purchase history now they have intentionally destroyed that too. What size shoe did you buy 3 years ago? Too bad we are not telling you!
The purchase/shipped/etc email was the lifeline to tracking your Amazon spending and exactly what you bought. Now that is impossible. It's similar to a business refusing to give you a proper receipt and should be likely illegal.
What 3rd party companies I let hoover up my Amazon purchase emails is none of their business.
I went and looked at order confirmation emails from 2019 and confirmed my memory that back then they didn’t list what items I ordered (but did a few years before). At the time I figured this change was intended to fight against Paribus, a startup that would scan your email and automatically request compensation for late Amazon deliveries.
But then I looked at emails last year and Amazon was sending item names after order again. So it seems like this practice has changed multiple times.
I ascribed it to the likes of Google vacuuming all this data at scale from gmail service -- which Amazon actively wanted to avoid (gifting free data to Google to train on and potentially advertize Amazon-alternatives to via personalized/targetted ads based on purchase patterns and preferences)
I worked at Shopify during this period and their Shop app (the one that helpfully tracks your packages arriving) was a victim of these emails becoming vague.
At the time it felt like a specific reaction to Shopify mining this information to compete. (I have no insider knowledge if they were or were not).
Of course, the answer can be many things -- now it's AI, back then it was 17track, Google, Shopify, etc.
I ordered something yesterday, expecting it today, and the confirmation email contains the actual product images and title (albeit trimmed).
Good example of where user agents will need to be more proactive in areas like this to collect and store information useful to the user. In the accelerating "optimization" of online commerce (and discourse) more relations will become aggressively adversarial.
You know folks, it is perfectly doable to live you life without buying on amazon.
I wish there was a way to put another phone number under Account / Notifications / Shipping and delivery. Without adding somebody to a "household" or installing apps, I just want someone else to know a package was delivered, and it should be brought inside.
A better method that limits exposing information to Amazon is to set up forwarding rules with your email provider or client.
I recommend stop feeding the beast. Have not used Amazon in 10 years and never will. They are so big that they harm the buying power of the consumer and selling power of the producer. Personal knowledge gained while working with them.
Enshittification.
Yeah, seriously. We keep being promised by these very empathetic and so honest tech CEOs (messages probably broadcasted from their bunkers) that all these AI tools will make life so much better for us, but so far for most things I use things have gotten worse - and I'm still trying to find affordable computer parts, which has been a total joke in the last year. Thankfully I bought my PS5 and Switch 2 before all the price creeping really started
After checking every box to never get any email from Amazon.com, I followed-up with a catch-all auto-delete rule for the domain. That was 10 years ago. I have experienced zero issues with their services. As a nice bonus, I'm immediately aware of anyone trying to phish me via Amazon orders.
I've been unsubscribing from a lot of mailing lists the past week because my email was getting cluttered.
I noticed many Amazon emails, not just the 'ads' but also the order confirmation, order shipped, rate your order, etc emails related to a purchase. Honestly, never look at any of them because I know most will arrive either same day or within the next 1-2 days and I don't care for rating my orders.
It's only when something hasn't arrived within that timeframe that I check the app/website, both of which are much more useful.
If your delivery is fulfilled by amazon, they'll ask if you want to send a "thanks" to your driver. My understanding is there are bonuses for good levels of "thanks" and so it's worth clicking though and giving them as much thanks as you can to help them out.
I rather those drives have Health Care than having to suck up for bonuses.