Under the Hood at Amazon

Today's Little Known Fact.

A short while ago, for reasons to unimportant to explain, I changed my password on Amazon for a short time, three weeks.  Yesterday, I went to change it back, but kept getting an error message that the password was "unavailable."  I was scratching my head because I couldn't figure out why in the world a password was not available.

Only by doing some searching did I discover the after-the-fact fine print:  if you change your password on Amazon, you can never go back and use it again.

(Had I known this policy before changing my password for just three weeks, I suspect I never would have changed it.)

I called Amazon and spoke with the Password Department.  They explained that the reason had to do with "security."  After all, they said, what if a friend knew your password, they could use it if you went back to it.  Well, a) that's some friend, but b) if your friend or anyone knew your password, they could use it at any time, like when it's actually active.  So, the reason made zero sense.  Mind you, I know that it's good to change passwords every once in a while.  And I do so, on occasion.  But that's a separate matter from not being about to re-use an old password.  I made two requests:

The first was that they reverse their policy.  Anyone should be able to use whatever password they want.  After all, it's your password.  I don't expect that request to get very far, which leads to --

The second request, that when someone goes to change their password, they are informed on screen that if they make a change they will not ever be able to use that password again.

Anyway, if you ever decide you might want to change your password on Amazon, just know that you can never change back to it. 

This has been a Public Service from Elisberg Industries.  Your friendly full-service neighbor, providing you live on the planet Earth.  Otherwise, if you live elsewhere, while we're still friendly and still consider you a neighbor (albeit in a wider neighborhood), we can't guarantee that we'll be full-service.  But we'll try...