[Ninong]

The Santas on Amazon may soon know if intended gift recipients have been not only naughty or nice, but also whether they're Muslim, gay and unemployed.

Amazon.com filed a patent application on Aug. 10 for a process that would allow Amazon customers to use the retail Web site to gather information on other customers, including "birthday, interests, occupation, education level, income level, location, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation."

That information would be obtained by Amazon through several means, including "from a user profile for the recipient, from past ordering patterns of the recipient or from publicly accessible databases" and Amazon would then make recommendations based on "appropriate recipients for the items (e.g., religion and race)," the patent filing said.