I was just at Amazon.com, and as usual they toss up several “recommended” items based on past purchases.  Most of these made some sense, based on what I’ve bought from Amazon in the past, but I didn’t see why they were recommending the soundtrack album to Across the Universe; I like the Beatles but I don’t think I’ve ever bought any Beatles music or any soundtrack albums from Amazon.  So I clicked the “Why is this recommended for you?” link, and it says

Recommended for You
Across The Universe [Deluxe Edition]
~ Original Soundtrack
Our Price: $13.99
Used & new from $13.93

Because you purchased…
Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends (Hardcover)
by David Wilton (Author), Ivan Brunetti (Illustrator)

Is there something you’re not telling us, Dave?

I see several possibilities:

1) I just checked and last week someone clicked through to Amazon from my site and bought a copy of Across the Universe. Perhaps they bought a copy of Word Myths too. (There were several copies of the book sold via my site that week, but I cannot access the data to see if its the same person--but I’m sure Amazon can.) That may have set up a correlation in Amazon’s recommendation algorithms.

2) There may just happen to be a correlation between people buying Word Myths and buying Beatles music. I checked and no Beatles music was bought via my site this year, but that doesn’t mean that others aren’t buying both.

3) Some months ago, I bought a bunch of Beatles CDs from Amazon. (I had no Beatles music in my collection and while I’m not a great fan, this was a rather gaping hole in my collection.) Maybe Amazon can correlate my purchases with what’s sold over the site.

And for your privacy concerns, I don’t have access to any personal info about people who buy from Amazon after clicking there from my site. I can only see aggregated data about what was bought and when, nothing about who bought what.

For the record, the oddest thing purchased by someone coming from Wordorigins was a set of Wonder Woman underwear.

I guess we know who Eliza dressed up as for Halloween.

Though why I might also like to try out a

Superman boxer with a Super Size shield for men

is deeply disturbing.  As indeed is the thought of me wearing an XXXL Wonderwoman outfit that would fit where it touched.

My husband is always asking why I enjoy reading this board, especially as I rarely contribute (abnormal behavior for his obnoxiously loquacious wife).
I just had him read this thread.
I think he gets it now. *insert several lol smilies here*