Amazon patents gift return shortcut

SEATTLE, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A patent granted U.S. retail giant Amazon.com allows people to intercept gifts headed their way if sent by someone deemed to have questionable taste.

U.S. firms spend untold millions of dollars restocking returned gifts that had been given by well-intended friends and relatives that Amazon's patent lumps into one generic nom-de-plum as Aunt Mildred, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Amazon's answer to the hassle of restocking returned gifts, which amounts to 30 percent of all gifts, is to have consumers tag specific friends or relatives as high-risk gift givers. Then if one of them sends an Amazon purchase, the company will alert the intended recipient before the gift is shipped and offer other options before sending an unwanted gift.

With the new system, those paisley pillow cases will never be sent.

Amazon, instead, has patented various algorithms, one of which, for example, triggers an option to "Convert any gift from Aunt Mildred to a gift certificate, but only after checking with me."

The concept drew a polite "harrumph" from Anna Post, great-great granddaughter of etiquette writer Emily Post.

"The point of gift giving is to allow someone else to go through that action of buying something for us. Otherwise, giving a gift just becomes another one of the world's transactions," she said.