#AmazonCart Debuts

#AmazonCart Debuts

AmazonCart debuts as, according to Boston.com, Amazon.com entered into a partnership with Twitter to help simplify the Internet shopping experience.

The #AmazonCart hashtag got its official introduction in early May. It encouraged Twitter users who saw tweets of products sold on Amazon.com to reply with the hashtag, which then puts those items in the users’ Amazon shopping carts.

The enormous online retailer’s website has detailed instructions on how to connect your Twitter account to Amazon.com, which is evidently a vital step in the process.

How It Could Be Problematic

Would you do it? I’m not so sure I want people to see if I am buying lingerie, medical supplies, or self-help books. Imagine a potential employer seeing a purchase of supplies for a transgender person, or The Communist Manifesto, or any number of anti-aging products. What if I were investigating products to help me get a divorce, get through chemotherapy, or file for bankruptcy?

If I keep my age (and any attendant clues about it, such as my graduation years, or the earliest versions of software that I claim to be an expert in) off my resume, does not the purchase of menopausal relief supplies make it something that a potential employer could reasonably infer?

I Don’t Think They Thought AmazonCart All the Way Through

Here in Massachusetts, a credit check is not supposed to be kosher. Yet if I purchase a book about improving my credit score, would not a potential employer put two and two together? Of course, there is the possibility that I am overthinking this. I have been known to do that before. But still!

Methinks the Internet already knows plenty about my spending habits. I can take the extra five minutes or so and use a regular shopping cart at Amazon. And no one will ever need to know I’m buying disco albums.

Oops ….