DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Earlier this year I became a fan of Amazon’s Gold Box. I hit Amazon.com nearly every day, rabidly clicking through the 10 offers. I remember buying at least two items I wouldn’t have bought had they not appeared there: a high-end rice cooker, for example, and a Calphalon griddle (75% off!). I didn’t purchase, but I appreciated, the steady parade of MP3 players and NetGear products and Leatherman tools in my daily offer set.

But last week, my Gold Box became infected with toys. Gone are my sleek, charcoal gray metallic audio components, my hardened steel drill bits, my eternally-warrantied kitchen appliances. In their place: “Pose Me Pets Environment: Bedroom”, which I can’t even parse much less fathom… Fisher Price Screwy Looey… some kind of Home Depot action figure… Seven of my 10 offers are for toys today. Never has any single product category so monopolized my Gold Box.

I think the problem is that I searched for a toy at Amazon’s site recently. Two friends have recently given birth, so I’m following the traditional American response pattern of sending some molded plastic crap with a happy face stamped on the outside. Amazon’s opportunistic profiler instantly branded me as a parent. It’s bad AI, and it has cost them a customer. It’s just too depressing to see my 10 Gold Box offers wasted on day-glow plastic baubles that don’t even plug in.

This idea is not original; I’ve seen it suggested before: Amazon ought to have a widget on their site so that users can indicate “I’m just researching — don’t construe the following action as any statement of my actual interests.” It could be as simple as a “gift mode” button. It would allow me to browse items from a category I find distasteful without being subjected to more of the same for months to come.

I emailed a complaint to Amazon’s customer service group. Here is their response:

We select your personalized offers based on a variety of factors. I’m sorry, but it is currently not possible to request or exclude Gold Box offers in specific product categories.

But even though they don’t offer overt control, I ought to be able to influence the profiler. I’m going to try searching for anti-toys for a few days, in hopes that that will skew my profile back from the realm of “things that get sucked on.” I’m not real sure what constitutes an anti-toy, though… wrestling videos, maybe? The cure could be worse than the disease.

I just discovered a tool on the account page called “Improve Your Recommendations.” Maybe this is the overt control I’ve been hoping for? I’ve tried to check all the aggressive and unfriendly categories, the genres of entertainment media that imply impatience and close-mindedness and callousness, in hopes that Amazon determines I could not possibly be a parent.

Is it worth it to me to have Amazon’s profiler conclude that I’m a mean-spirited, selfish prick? If that’s what it takes to get Playskool out of my Gold Box, yes.