Starve Amazon
If you still have an Amazon account or use a Kindle or Ring (and lets face it, millions of people do) there are more ways than boycott to protest Amazon. Today we turn off tracking. It’s a win-win for you: targeted ads are designed to appeal to your impulses, not your needs, and they fuel Amazon’s significant marketing power.

How to do it:
Electronic Frontier Foundation Guide:
Amazon collects an astounding amount of information about your shopping habits. While the only way to truly free yourself from the company’s all-seeing eye is to never shop there, there is something you can do to disrupt some of that data use: tell Amazon to stop using your data to market more things to you (these settings are for US users and may not be available in all countries).
- Log into your Amazon account, then click “Account & Lists” under your name.
- Scroll down to the “Communication and Content” section and click “Advertising preferences” (or just click this link to head directly there).
- Click the option next to “Do not show me interest-based ads provided by Amazon.”
- You may want to also delete the data Amazon already collected, so click the “Delete ad data” button.
This setting will turn off the personalized ads based on what Amazon infers about you, though you will likely still see recommendations based on your past purchases at Amazon.
Of course, Amazon sells a lot of other products. If you own an Alexa, now’s a good time to review the few remaining privacy options available to you after the company took away the ability to disable voice recordings. Kindle users might want to turn off some of the data usage tracking. And if you own a Ring camera, consider enabling end-to-end encryption to ensure you’re in control of the recording, not the company.
A note on boycotting Amazon: while we strongly support those who choose to boycott Amazon, we also understand that avoiding a near monopoly isn’t an easy ask. For some with mobility and transportation obstacles, Prime shipping is a lifesaver. Our philosophy is “nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something.” We strive to make movement in a better direction accessible: don’t let Amazon mine you for marketing revenue, and buy locally when you can. If boycotting Amazon is your lane, we support your move! We’ll keep working for a day when nobody relies on Walmart for groceries or Amazon for delivery.
This post illustrated with an image from UnSplash (https://unsplash.com/license) or Wikimedia Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)




