All I ever buy on amazon is download MP3s and singleplayer PC games. Nothing else, ever.

What do they send me emails about?

Xbox games, free to play multiplayer games and books.

One of those is somewhat excusable, but seriously? If they sent me info on their music and PC game sales I would have probably purchased much more than I have. They don't though, they send me ads for shit I don't want and have never purchased from them ever.

Weird.

At least it isn't deals for the latest John Deere tractor...

Are you the only one that uses your computer? If you so much as view a page while logged in, Amazon will construe that to mean that you're interested in that product. I keep getting useless mails about obscure engineer parts because I occasionally have to scour Amazon for their prices.

And this is why I always use a throwaway email for online stores.

Though, to be fair, I've gotten some pretty silly suggestions from Netflix and Barnes & Noble as well. I think perhaps that it's not just your own personal item viewing habits, but also aggregate data from other folks who view/purchase those items. So you're getting F2P game suggestions because people that have your same musical taste play those games, or somesuch.

Regardless of Amazon site (UK, US, JP) they only ever send me marketing emails related to products I've actually looked at on site. I've only ever looked at PC/PS3 games on Amazon US, so they only ever send mails with such titles in them. So are you sure you didn't, at some point, have a quick glance at an Xbox game or sommat? Perhaps when comparing formats with those pages they offer up with all formats on the same page?

You do know that with digital purchases (games, music, movies) the confirmation E-Mail is actually the proof of ownership? I would keep those. I don't get E-Mails from them, but their "recommendations" are spot on. I actually bought stuff of those. When I was abroad, I ordered all my law books through Amazon. And even then the recommendations where spot on ;-).

Amazon.com is always showing me the newest deals, which is nice.

IIRC, its based on "people who bought this also bought that".

Well of course I keep them, but I don't use my primary email for them either, because I don't need oodles of marketing spam clogging up my inbox. I have a separate "software purchases" email just for those.

Ah, ok. That is smart (I was just confused by that "throw away line". I'm doing the same. I've got also different accounts for different stuff. Eg. one account just for video-games and related.

I might have looked at Xbox pages for reviews? I dunno. Still seems silly. I NEVER get emails about PC sales.

I bought some candy once and the recommendation algorithm went a little crazy.

I like that Amazon are stupid, because it means they never question my claim to living in a pizzeria in Anchorage, Alaska, even though my email ends in .co.uk and my purchases are redeemed to a UK IP.

Can't you just turn off those newsletters?

It's quite easy to go into your account preferences and select which type of products you'd like to receive emails about.

It's not bad programming.

I want sales emails, just about stuff I actually buy.