Amazon Patents Deducing Religion From Gift Wrap
Found on Slashdot on Sunday, 25 December 2011
If you're the giver or recipient of presents gift-wrapped by Amazon, you may want to take a gander at U.S. Patent No. 8,060,463, granted to Amazon last month for Mining of User Event Data to Identify Users with Common Interests. Among other things, Amazon explains the invention can be used to identify recipients of gifts as Christian or Jewish based on wrapping paper. From the patent: 'The gift wrap used by such other users when purchasing gifts for this user, such as when the gift wrap evidences the user's religion (in the case of Christmas or Hanukkah gift wrap, for example.)'
Soon the feds will ask Amazon to mine through the data to find out who is a terrorist, based on the books they bought and their religion.