Amazon confirms: Public wish lists can reveal addresses

“The ability to restrict purchases from third-party sellers for list items will be removed on March 25, 2026,” Amazon Germany informs heise online upon request. The company thus confirms numerous posts on social media in which users pointed to this change. This had been announced to them via notifications in their accounts with the mail-order company.

Customers who have created a public wish list on Amazon could be particularly affected by this change. For many years, this mechanism has allowed anyone to be gifted products, depending on the settings. However, it was previously possible to specify that Amazon itself handles the order – and that, once an order has been placed, it already knows the customer's address.

Since companies can also operate on Amazon through the Amazon Marketplace, which one might not necessarily want to trust, it was previously possible to exclude these third parties from orders via a wish list. The recipient's address may be passed on. Amazon writes about this:

“If a customer has a public list and links an address to their list in the list settings, gift purchasers may receive the recipient's address through sellers and delivery partners fulfilling those orders, as they share delivery updates and tracking information as part of the shipping process.”

Possible remedies must be set by the user

The only remedy Amazon recommends is to change the visibility of the wish list. Specifically, from "Public" to "Shared" – then it can still be passed on via a link – or directly to "Private". The delivery address can also be set to “None”, in which case there may be inquiries from retailers via the platform. In any case, the customer has to do more work if they still want to receive gifts via wish lists. The lists can be managed at amazon.com/wishlist.

Influencers often create Amazon wish lists that they share on their channels. Fans can buy gifts without knowing the address of the person receiving the gift. A possible scenario: A potential stalker could register as a seller for one of the desired items, buy the product through another Amazon account, and thus obtain the address.

The company left our question unanswered as to what improvements customers should expect from Amazon through the changes.

(nie)