Those of you who use the retailer Amazon (and that’s probably most of you), may have noticed the fairly recent trend of the friendly multi-national giant helpfully suggesting alternative products for us to buy. Because they care. Such a helpful bunch.

For example, Amazon recommends Dexter on blu-ray because you purchased Six Feet Under. Makes perfect sense as those two series have similar dark humour and plot lines. Or Amazon recommends this ball bearing gun because you purchased the book ‘How best to kill squirrels in a slow and painful manner.’ Didn’t happen, but you get the gist.

But you can surely imagine my surprise when I received the following unexplained suggestion:

How the hell does my purchase of a CD by a middle of the road crooner, popular with older women, make me potentially interested in smutty soft porn? In fact, I would say that the opposite would be true. A bit like saying because you purchased a Garth Brooks CD, Amazon recommends the Al Qaeda handbook for you.

I tweeted the screenshot and Amazon customer services replied within minutes, unsurprisingly! “Sorry about that I’ll get it reported to the business team. You did the right thing checking the box. It shouldn’t happen again.”

Shouldn’t happen but will it happen again? Surely they should block all adult content from this kind of algorithm which surely isn’t up to scratch. Having said all of this, it did make me laugh. I notice that they don’t offer ‘used’ copies…