It's intolerable that e-mail can be used to silently zap a name tag onto you that might be scanned by a site you visit later. It's like secretly bar-coding people with invisible ink,

They all find out that you opened the mail and they get an invisible tracking number, so if you go to a store ... that number is reported to them and they can build that information into a database,

A common tactic in direct mail is to disguise the nature of the solicitation and send you something that doesn't indicate what's inside, to make you open the envelope. People aren't opening the 'mystery envelopes' right now.

Responses to direct marketing are dropping in general. More and more people just throw mail away - especially unmarked mail - without opening it.

Amazon wants to protect themselves from later [customer] lawsuits that claim, 'We weren't told,' ... They also want to leave the door open if they need to sell off a division or claim bankruptcy. They know that their consumer database is one of their most valuable assets, so they want to give themselves max flexibility--which means less privacy for customers.

It shows that we're on a downhill slope. Companies, as they go into bankruptcy or find out more about the legal risks, tend to erect reinforcements around their posteriors. That's bad for the consumer.