"Stop Recommending!"

Well, that's what I feel like shouting when I visit Amazon.com oftentimes. I sometimes go to their "My Recommendation" page and see what they think would interests me. And most of the times, I end up wasting half an hour giving negative feedback to their recommendations so that that feature might be remotely useful.

I guess I wasn't the only person who felt frustrated at the recent trend in this type of machine profiling. The Wall Street Journal has an article titled "If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here's How to Set It Straight". From the article, here is a quote about tasting one's own medicine.

For a live demonstration before an audience of 500 people, Mr. Bezos once logged onto Amazon.com (amazon.com) to show how it caters to his interests. The top recommendation it gave him? The DVD for "Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity." That popped up because he had previously ordered "Barbarella," starring Jane Fonda, a spokesman explains.

I guess, I can ignore this, and move on. But still, I, just like many other people, get urges to get approval from some other entities albeit being a machine. :p