Ethics Newsline®

SEATTLE
Internet retailer Amazon.com last week responded to privacy concerns by agreeing to allow businesses and consumers to opt out of the company’s new “Purchase Circles” tracking program.

The program uses consumers’ zip codes and email addresses to tally sales, listing the 10 most popular items at 3,000 businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, military branches, and geographic areas.

Amazon.com launched the program two weeks ago, touting purchase circles as a convenient way for users to shop for gifts by demographic appeal, the Associated Press reported.

For example, the AP reported, prospective buyers could determine which were the most popular books at Harvard, or the most frequently purchased CDs in Miami.

But privacy-rights groups and some employers cried foul, criticizing the program as an invasion of consumers’ privacy.

Amazon.com defended the program as innovative and consumer-friendly, noting that clients’ precise identities could not be traced through the program, and that businesses with less than 200 employees were exempted in order to reduce workplace suspicions over controversial purchases.

But Amazon.com executive Warren Adams last week said that the firm would nevertheless alter the program, giving consumers the option of keeping their purchases private, and allowing businesses to nix the listing of employees’ buying habits.