Amazon’s new ad verification program will pay users $2 a month – if they deliver the ads they see on smartphone.
Currently, the program is only available to UK and US members of the Amazon Shopper Panel, a rewards program that already allows users to hand over third-party shopping receipts in exchange for privileges.
People with the Amazon Shopper Panel app will see a setting to opt-in to the ad verification service, which informs users that it will “collect and use information about where and when you see ads from Amazon, for example the app or website where you viewed the ad and what time of day you viewed it.”
Privacy concerns
The advertisement in question may be direct advertising from Amazon, but may also be from third-party companies that advertise through Amazon Ads.
Amazon says they use personal information for interest-based advertising, as well as making recommendations for certain features for shoppers to use.
Subscribers can opt out at any time and can delete their personal information. The company also states that it will not share the personal data it collects with anyone else, unless it is required for a transaction with a third party, such as a supplier on the site. Amazon or to comply with the law.
Amazon’s history of transparency regarding personal data is less stellar. Last year, the company fined nearly a billion dollars for violating GDPRand its gift subscription feature that allows people to collect personal information about the user.
None of this seems to have stopped Amazon from ramping up its data collection practices, and similar efforts from other tech giants have since failed. In 2012, Google Screenwise offered Amazon gift cards to people willing to monitor their network traffic, and in 2016 Facebook offered gift cards to 13-25 year olds to install. one VPN allows the company to view web usage habits.
