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Amazon patent gets the usual suspects riled

By Gearhead, NetworkWorld.com, 03/16/05

An article in New Scientist dated March 15th reports on a patent awarded to Amazon on March 8th that "describes software that automatically guesses when a gift is being purchased by extracting key words such as "birthday" or "anniversary" from an attached message. It might also note details such as the fact that the buyer has asked it to be gift wrapped or that the recipient address is different from the purchaser address."

The article continues: "The software would then infer the recipient's age and gender according to the type of gift, the paper it is wrapped in and by cross-referencing any past appraisals of the items purchased. Amazon would remind potential gift purchasers by sending them emails or an alert when they log on to the website."

That Amazon would mine their own data to support marketing programs should not really come as a surprise to anyone and indeed, we suspect that Amazon's shareholders would be a little cross if the company wasn't doing such a thing.

What's interesting is that this is hardly a novel technique! It has been used for years in the direct sales world although in a much less organized manner. Even so, there are those who are up in arms about the patent and what Amazon might do ...

Now we know well that the media has a penchant for polarising issues into for and against, black or white, simply because it makes for a more engaging story that requires less thought to assimilate than a story that presents shades of grey (see "The Argument Culture" by Deborah Tannen -- highly recommended).

While the media may well be fanning the flames in this case the story does seem to have enraged a surprisingly large number of people who we would have thought would have been less moved by what is effectively the consideration of an idea of a possibility. Rather than waiting to see what may really come of this these people have all started screaming about how this patent will erode our civil liberties. No evidence, no precedent, just wild surmise and outrage at the future.

Let us consider what this patent is really all about: It is just the automation of techniques that have been applied heuristically in retail for decades (possibly even centuries). You walk into a store and the shopkeeper (if they have their wits about them) will size up your clothing, deportment, use of language, and a score of other cues in an attempt to sell to you more effectively. And if the shopkeeper knows you and your previous buying habits they will apply that additional knowledge to even more effectively part you from your money. Hardly surprising and all without computers. Is that an erosion of your civil liberties?

But suggest for a second that such a process be computerized and it is guaranteed that there's a group of people who'll jump up and down and scream "foul!" If you are one of those people you need to get a grip.

There's nothing that's really new in this new Amazon patent any more than there was in Amazon's quite inappropriately granted "one click" ordering patent, a patent that concerns what is simply an obvious evolutionary step in business process improvement.

Moreover, please tell us that you are not so naive as to believe that the likes of Acxiom, Equifax, Sears, American Express, and all the other mega-marketeers haven't been using similar, albeit unpatented, techniques for years.

Want something to complain about? Rant about how patents like this one stifle small companies and become mechanisms for large companies to wield like sticks to keep the competition in line. Rant about how the definitions of what constitutes novel ideas and techniques have been redefined by legalese rather than by logic. But you won't because that isn't sound bite material like the topic of civil liberties is. Ho-hum.

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Comments

I was about to start fuming about this post at the beginning, but you do bring up the real issue at the end: patenting trivial, obvious and already well known techniques and practices in order to stiffle compretition without having to be really innovative.

On the 'civil liberties' side: while I actually find those Amazon et al 'recommendations' rather useful, I would like assurance that they are derived entirely automatically, that no human being looks into them and that neither them nor underlying 'raw data' are shared with anybody, including government.

Posted by: Bonzi on March 29, 2005 05:33 AM