Palm Reading -- Amazon Style -- March 27, 2023

Updates

Later, 11:03 p.m. CT: The Verge, September 29, 2020.  

Original Post

This is really, really clever. Something offered by Amazon of which I was completely unaware. 

I stumbled upon the scheme in a CNBC story on Panera Bread, one of our many favorite restaurants even if we don't go out much any more.

The other day I went to Target but forgot to take my wallet. No problem. ApplePay on my smartphone.

But what if I happen to forget both my wallet and telephone? 

No problem. "Palm reading."

Here's the Panera story: pay with your palm!

If you haven't heard of Amazon One, and I had not, here's the Amazon One site: three-steps to reading your palm.

This is very, very clever. To set up your plan, you need to visit a retailer who accepts Amazon One / palm reading. Once you have signed up online, one then visits Panera, for example, and by making a purchase there, you've set up "palm reading."

So, today, I started the process. I clicked on the first of three steps. I was brought to a new page that had four of my most-used credit cards already pre-loaded. Amazing. I had never seen this site, never used this site, nothing, nada, nil. 

And there it was, pre-loaded with four of my most-used credit cards from which I was to select one and continue the process. The four cards were mine; they were not "examples." All four had my correct credit card account number.

So, three big stories here:

• Amazon: 
• financial institutions collect and maintain a lot more information of which you are probably unaware;
• Amazon is as much a financial institution as a bookseller
• Amazon continues to act more and more like a bank without being a bank
• "palm reading" itself:
• remember, when we thought the retinal scan or facial recognition was going to be the way we did this?
• it eliminates the facial recognition issue; no one can possibly legitimately be fearful of "palm recognition"; it also gets away from "fingerprinting" which seems to scare a lot of folks;
• also, what could be easier? "Everybody" already knows "talk to the hand." Much simpler than retinal scanning or even finger-touch -- 
• and: no germs in this age of Covid-19 -- the process is entirely contactless.
  
• partners:
• to complete the process, one is required to visit a retailer that accepts Amazon One "palm reading." 
• what better way for Amazon to "partner" with yet another retailer than to require you to finish the process with another retail partner?
  

Right now, I assume Amazon One is a (social) experiement; it may or may not succeed, but Amazon has a lot of patience.

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Happy Spring