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Amazon’s new ad verification program pays users $2 a month – if they make available what ads they see on their smartphone.
Currently, the scheme 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 coupons in exchange for perks.
Those with the Amazon Shopper Panel app will see a setting to opt-in to the ad verification service, informing 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 have viewed the advertisement and the time at which you viewed it.
Privacy Concerns
The advertisements in question can be from Amazon directly, but also from third-party companies that advertise through Amazon Ads.
Amazon says it uses the personal information for interest-based advertising and to recommend certain features for buyers to use.
Those who sign up can unsubscribe and delete their personal information at any time. The company also claims that it will not share the personal information it collects with anyone else unless it is necessary for a transaction with a third party, such as a seller on the Amazon site, or to comply with the law.
Amazon’s history with personal data transparency hasn’t been great. Last year it was business was fined nearly $1 billion for a GDPR violationAnd his The gift registries feature allowed anyone to collect personal information about users.
None of this seems to have stopped Amazon from expanding its data collection business, nor similar attempts by other tech giants that subsequently failed. In 2012, Google Screenwise offered Amazon gift cards to those willing to have their network traffic monitored, and in 2016 Facebook offered gift cards to 13- to 25-year-olds for installing a VPN that allowed the company to view web usage.