Amazon no longer puts order information in email confirmations due to scraping

daringfireball.net

5 points·HelenePhisher··4 comments

The reason is actually because orders are not a static resource, they change as new information becomes available.

An email saying "Your order is confirmed, here's what it contains" is very resolute. What if it gets cancelled? A line item get cancelled? One thing ships separately?

Source: run a B2B commerce platform, worked at Shopify (same argument).

I guess no. They don't even put order information in emails when items are in the delivery vehicle and determined to be delivered that day. You just see the price information, not the items. That feels indeed a bit inconvenient for me particularly when I ordered a couple of things and this order is split up in different deliveries.

Seems wise not to give that information to competitors (e.g., many people have @gmail.com addresses).

I wonder if that is really such a big thing ...? Is Google (the Ad and online service company) really a competitor of Amazon (the online retailer)? In what way does Google make use of trends in online shopping? And furthermore: how many companies out there are harvesting emails, and what technology are they using? Most emails are sent using e2e encryption/Tls nowadays. Gruber mentions Edison Mail in the article ... are there more? And do webmail/freemail services sell these data to big data companies?

In that light, I think I like that move by Amazon. It protects their data and my data as well. Win-win.

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