Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) already collects massive amounts of data on how people shop on its website, but what consumers are buying away from the site remains opaque to the e-commerce giant. To gain more insight into what shoppers are purchasing elsewhere, Amazon is offering to pay consumers to upload to its data-crunching computers the receipts for their purchases at supermarkets, drugstores, restaurants, and department stores. They can earn additional rewards for completing surveys, too. Image source: Getty Images. Amazon says the purpose of the Amazon Shopper Panel, as the program is called, is to help brands on its platform offer better products and to make Amazon's ads more relevant, yet it also gives the retailer valuable insights into consumer shopping habits that until now have been closed off to it. The opt-in, invitation-only program will pay consumers for uploading 10 eligible receipts a month. Purchases for things like medical expenses, child care, guns, and gambling, as well as handwritten receipts or foreign-language ones will be rejected, but just about everything else is good. It says the data submitted will be used anonymously. The e-commerce giant thrives on data, but it has been accused of using the data collected from third-party retailers on its site to design products to compete against them. The fear that Amazon would siphon off their customer information was partly the reason rivals like Target (NYSE: TGT) stopped using Amazon Web Services as the backbone of their own e-commerce platforms and why Walmart (NYSE: WMT) urges its vendors not to use it. The new program also follows the launch of Amazon One, the contactless palm-reader payment system that connects to a credit card or bank account, giving credence to concerns some might have about allowing Amazon to delve even deeper into consumers' psyches as it also collects unique biometric data about them. 10 stocks we like better than AmazonWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Amazon wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of October 20, 2020 John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rich Duprey has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and recommends the following options: long January 2022 $1920 calls on Amazon and short January 2022 $1940 calls on Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source