I saw an article in the New York Times recently about how a new orthopedic clinic contacted Amazon to find out who bought knee-braces in their area. After paying a fee Amazon sent that info along with names and addresses of the customers. The new clinic then sent mail to just that select group instead of flooding the area with their advertisements. I guess some would consider that an invasion of privacy but I kind of see it as smart advertising and saving a forest of trees.
What do you think? Is Amazon abusing their customers?
I’m a car guy, or at least I enjoy watching TV shows about cars. One of my favorite new shows is “Full Custom Garage”. It is about a very creative guy who doesn’t have all the fancy tools of so many other shows but manages to make beautify creations with very basic tools. The satellite channel he is on used to be called “Velocity” but just recently it was re-named “Motor Trend”.
I think the owner of the channel got a new CEO recently and he had to justify his million dollar contract by renaming the channel. The trouble with this is that on my satellite listing it is tagged MTHD. Is it just me but when I see those initials I think “Meth Head”? I will keep watching it but I will never describe myself as a meth head! 🙂
In_Depth Report Coming Soon…
For the last couple of weeks, I have been working on an In-Depth report on the subject of Autism. I was hoping it would be ready for tomorrow but it just needs more work so I will put it off at least another week. The title is The Positive Side of Autism. It is about my study of autism concentrating primarily on adults and in particular Asperger’s part of the spectrum. I suspect the title is upsetting to some, especially those who have children with the most severe forms of autism, but there is a positive side for this condition that needs to be explained. The vast majority of work in autism is with children. Since what is now defined as autism has been around for centuries or more we need to know about it at the adult level. That is where perhaps, 98% of the total autism population exists.
Celebration
I will be putting out my 3500th post here at RJsCorner this week! If you don’t believe me, just click on the Archive Calendar on the right side of this and every post. 🙂 I didn’t know I had it in me. This is my 10th year on the corner, but it seems like yesterday!!
Help me celebrate and I hope you keep coming back for more.
RJ's Corner 
Abusing their customers? Not really in my opinion especially since it is well known that this is part of the online purchasing “experience”. If a business will be mailing stuff I guess I’d rather be tightly targeted vs a mass mailing or generic targeting.
Generic targeting is: over 55 or retired or AARP member, etc.
Personally, I think the tightly targeted is best up to a point. At least I might be interested.
Here is my best example of getting targeted. A few years ago I received, on the same day, a sample of Huggies and a sample of Depends from 2 different companies. I guess they had me coming and going 🙂 I’m over 60 and I must have bought something that gave an indication I had a young child in the house. I think I bought something at a big box store that triggered the Huggies.
I really dislike junk mail so I’d prefer none at all. I have a really good credit rating. I wish I’d stop getting so many CC offers.
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Me too, Bob.
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