Let me try to unpack the problems. sgk284 described two situations:
- One is that Amazon can identify your wallet when you pay them for something.
My objection is that if you have multiple addresses, it's not easy at all for Amazon to know if they all belong to you or not. Of course, it doesn't work if you just create an address, transfer the payment amount to it, and then immediately transfer it to Amazon.
But if you keep a savings address and few payments wallets and maybe a web wallet (which is not really a "wallet", since it mixes your bitcoins with everyone else's), it becomes increasingly hard to tell apart.
- The second problem is that Amazon, having identified your wallet, can then see what other retailers have you bought from.
But this doesn't work, because other retailers will use payment processors, and that kind of tracking (correlating in → out) doesn't work, because payment processors don't do that. Instead, they pool all the payments and send you (the retailer) a single transfer at the end of the day/week/etc.
- One is that Amazon can identify your wallet when you pay them for something.
My objection is that if you have multiple addresses, it's not easy at all for Amazon to know if they all belong to you or not. Of course, it doesn't work if you just create an address, transfer the payment amount to it, and then immediately transfer it to Amazon.
But if you keep a savings address and few payments wallets and maybe a web wallet (which is not really a "wallet", since it mixes your bitcoins with everyone else's), it becomes increasingly hard to tell apart.
- The second problem is that Amazon, having identified your wallet, can then see what other retailers have you bought from.
But this doesn't work, because other retailers will use payment processors, and that kind of tracking (correlating in → out) doesn't work, because payment processors don't do that. Instead, they pool all the payments and send you (the retailer) a single transfer at the end of the day/week/etc.