Jeff Bezos’ Amazon has a trade offer for you: Amazon will monitor your phone data to verify ads and in exchange, you get $2 a month. Try not to spend it all in one place.
Business Insider reported on the news yesterday, citing Amazon’s Shopper Panel, which is hyper-exclusive and invite only, while also featuring an ad verification program. The Amazon Shopper Panel offers users $10 to submit 10 receipts, as well as earn rewards by completing surveys for the company. The Shopper Panel website reads:
The Amazon Shopper Panel is an opt-in, invitation-only program where participants can earn monthly rewards by sharing receipts from purchases made outside of Amazon.com, completing short surveys, and enabling ad verification for the ads they see from Amazon’s own advertising or third-party businesses that advertise through Amazon Ads.
Amazon explains in the website’s “Rewards” tab that users can enable ad verification to let the company confirm ads that users see from Amazon or third-party entities that use Amazon Ads. A promotional image about halfway down illustrates an interface with an option to toggle on paid ad verification on your device, where you will earn a $2 monthly “reward.”
A disclaimer in the image states that “[b]y choosing to enable ad verification, panelists allow us to confirm which ads from Amazon they saw on their device.” Amazon says that users can opt-out of ad verification anytime they want.
According to Business Insider, which cites an Amazon spokesperson, the program is invite-only, but users who didn’t make the cut can join a waitlist and potentially be invited at some point down the road. The spokesperson declines to explain to Business Insider how users are selected. Amazon did not immediately return Gizmodo’s request for comment on why the company implemented the Ad Verification program in the first place.
