I was recently recommended a promotion from Amazon and Unilever for a $2 MP3 credit. I don’t buy a whole lot of music and these small promotions are great because they tend cover a song or two on the rare occasion that I have a song in mind to buy. This promotion is easy enough. You just answer a question about what you would include in a care package. However, after you answer the question, it requires posting via Amazon’s Facebook app. The app seems to overstep the line beyond what should be needed in regards to permissions and that’s where it comes down to not being worth $2 or $20 in credit to Amazon’s MP3 store.
The Amazon Social App receives your basic info, email address, profile info, photos, videos, friends’ birthdays and likes, along with access to post on your behalf and the ability to access your data even when you’re offline. I understand some of those are necessary in order to post your answers to Facebook and share with your friends, ensuring Amazon gets something out of it. To me, it seems to be going beyond what’s necessary and logical, instead just grabbing everything it can get away with.
Why does it need access to photos and videos? Understanding data mining, all of this information helps create a profile. The better understood a customer is, the better you can tailor the experience to them. Unfortunately with this app able to grab your info and Friends’ info, you might decide the app isn’t worth whatever promotion out there but if your friends disagree, some of your info is still up for grabs.
Giving any company this much access is worth far more than $2 but apparently 970,002 other people disagree with me. Do you? Am I being overly paranoid and not giving into the consumerist, capitalist, large corporation society?