Amazon About You may know you a little too well

Amazon knows what you buy, what you search for and even what you tell its shopping assistant. Now, the company is giving you a look at the personality profile it has built from all that information. When I checked my own Amazon About You profile, I found 81 results, including a reference to my mother that caught me off guard. The feature brings together details about your shopping habits and preferences. Some are helpful. Others might make you wonder how Amazon reached those conclusions in the first place.

Shoppers are now sharing screenshots of descriptions that range from funny to completely inaccurate. Amazon says the feature helps improve shopping recommendations. However, it also raises an interesting privacy question. How much should a retailer know about you, and how much control do you really have over that information?

Join our upcoming CyberGuy LIVE class: 5 Ways to Travel Smarter and Save Money

In this free live online class, Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson will share five practical ways to protect your trip and your wallet this holiday travel season. Youll learn how to secure your phone and personal information, find better travel deals, avoid common scams, save money on bookings and use technology to make your travels easier and less stressful. No technical experience is needed.

Join us Saturday, October 31, at 11 AM ET / 8 AM PT. Register free now at CyberGuyLive.com.

WHAT YOUR INTERNET PROVIDER, WEBSITES AND ADVERTISERS SEE

Amazon introduced About You in May 2026, although the feature has recently attracted widespread attention as shoppers share their profiles on social media. Amazon has personalized shopping recommendations for years. If you bought a coffee maker, you probably noticed suggestions for filters or other accessories soon afterward. That kind of recommendation has become familiar to anyone who shops online. Now, Amazon is taking personalization further with About You, a section that shows shoppers what the company believes about their interests and preferences.

According to Amazon's announcement, the feature draws on information from several sources, including your purchase history, product reviews and items saved to Lists. Searches and conversations with Alexa for Shopping can also influence what Amazon learns.

For example, someone who regularly buys dairy-free milk might receive recommendations for other dairy-free products. A shopper researching gardening supplies could start seeing suggestions for fertilizer or companion plants. That sounds useful enough. However, Amazon can also develop assumptions about your personal preferences from individual purchases or short-lived interests. That's where things can get awkward.

Some shoppers have started sharing screenshots of their Amazon profiles on social media. The results range from remarkably accurate to unintentionally hilarious. One Threads user discovered that Amazon had included the description "flat buttocks" in her profile. "I stumbled upon a page of assumptions that Amazon has made about me based on my purchases and I'm literally speechless," she wrote.

She even acknowledged that the assessment wasn't entirely wrong. Still, it's hard to imagine anyone asking an online retailer for that particular evaluation. Meanwhile, another shopper shared a profile describing an obsession with minimalist, one-bag travel and a preference for Anker charging products. The shopper confirmed that Amazon had accurately identified those interests. A different user discovered that Amazon had recorded