How Amazon Shopping Ads Are Disguised as Real Results

Geoffrey Fowler, writing for The Washington Post:

Amazon is the first app many of us think about to buy things online. But is it actually a good place to go shopping? When you search for a product on Amazon, you may not realize that most of what you see at first is advertising. Amazon is betraying your trust in its results to make an extra buck.

Let me show you.

I long ago noticed the proliferation of paid placement in Amazon search results, but seeing it illustrated this way was an eye opener.

“Slippery slope” arguments are overused, but just like how paranoids can have real enemies, sometimes the slippery slope argument is true. I really hope that Apple has maxed out its paid placements in the App Store, because I think they already have too many. But I worry that every few months they’ll just keep adding more and it’ll soon be more ads than legit search results and editorial content.

★ Tuesday, 29 November 2022