> "...willfully handing them my data (in the form of search and browsing history); of course Amazon is going to keep that and use it to personalize my results."

> "...willfully handing them my data (in the form of search and browsing history); of course Amazon is going to keep that and use it to personalize my results." sure for the few minutes that that data is relevant to selling you stuff you're looking for right now, but why would you expect them to keep it for longer, as this seems to imply? the time dimension matters too. keeping that data for more than a few minutes should also be explicitly opt-in, as it's data being collected and potentially shared in the future (intentionally or not). reach and accessibility are naturally limited 'in the old days' where a salesperson might remember your preferences, even writing them down to share with other salespeople, but that data hardly leaked out to other retailers (and potential competitors). it seems that that should be our baseline, and any further gathering/sharing be subject to explicit opt-in.