Last night, after finding out about the Amazon craziness, I immediately called my editor, Brooke Warner, over at Seal Press. (Especially because Full Frontal Feminism and Yes Means Yes were two of the books affected.)
She spoke to their Amazon rep today, and he told her it was definitely not a glitch. From Brooke's email to me:
Basically he said that amazon has been experimenting with the way they dole out content specifically so that people who are searching Harry Potter or whatever won't run into links to products that might be offensive....It's super fucked up, but apparently he's saying that Amazon is a bully when it comes to stuff like this and it's all about sales for them and it's not about censorship. [He said t]hat they love you, love Seal, but that this is mandated from their bosses, who essentially want to be Walmart.
...He also said no human is responsible for the decisions per se, and that it's all about tagging and feeds which are constantly being tweaked. He does think that amazon will retweak the tags based on the uproar that happened over the weekend.
It's also worth noting that some folks, like the fabulous Deanna Zandt, believe that the reps may not know what they're talking about. "I'm almost positive at this point that it was a scripted (automated) thing someone figured out how to exploit," Deanna told me via email.
So that's what I know so far. Will update this post again if I hear anything different...
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Someone has claimed responsibility for this as a scripted attack, here: http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html (warning, offensive). I work in security, and the technical details of what he's saying seem to line up, although I haven't dug too deeply. Seems to be a case of PR handling the fallout from an incident very, very badly, and typical big-company left-hand not knowing what the right is doing.
those people make me sick. Goddamned fuckin losers with no pathetic lives.
I don't know anything about the code either, but some other people have already claimed to have checked into it and found out that this guy's code wouldn't have worked. So who knows.
I'm willing to believe someone hacked Amazon's database. If you give them the benefit of the doubt the worst they're guilty of is not fixing it faster. And I'd be fine with them implementing a safesearch setting, as long as its optional and as long as if you choose not to use it you still get rankings on "adult" books.
He's lying. The 'report as inappropriate' button appears only under customer reviews of books (supposedly only to be used if there's vulgar language or name-calling in a review). It does NOT appear on the listing for books themselves.
Yeah, just saw that in a couple of places. Serves me right for not digging as far as I could have. Well, back to square one, now with more people to throw on the bonfire.
That just makes me sad :/ Is stuff like that punishable as vandalism somehow? Seems like vandalism to me.
The entry is now locked. Wonder what prompted that.
Ok, I mean, it makes sense that Amazon might want to implement some safesearch options and chose a bad way to do it. But can you really take anyone seriously as an "amazon representative" who talks like that? Who tells you his bosses are bullies and want to be like walmart? It doesn't seem like a very reliable source.
I believe those aren't the Amazon rep's words, but Brooke Warner's paraphrasing of the situation.
Yes, that's correct. These are Brooke's words...
Well, ok, but then I think it would make more sense to report on the actual words from the amazon representative. From this post I can't really tell what information was given.
Maybe we should all buy _Yes Means Yes_ along with a children's book, like _Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel_ or _The Little Engine that Could_, and then whenever someone clicks on _YMY_, those books will pop up as "customers who liked this book also bought..."
That's an excellent idea, although, for it to work, it would mean people buying the same combinations.
I read elsewhere on here today about homophobic books coming up when you type 'homosexuality' into the search.
Maybe we could mark these as offensive, or, if that's not possible, give 1 star reviews and saying that the material is offensive and that you wouldn't want your kids coming across it from a random Amazon search.
Yep, lots of people have been submitting negative reviews of the first result under 'homosexuality', which is currently 'A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality'. There are 192 reviews of it now with an average of two stars. It's also been tagged with lots of things ranging from 'amazonfail' to 'breathtaking inanity', 'waste of a good tree' and, just to confuse, 'gay porn'.
The next two books that come up are "You Don't Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is" and "Can Homosexuality Be Healed?". I am loathe to believe that these are the best sellers or most recommended of all the books Amazon sells that are remotely connected to homosexuality.
Just as an aside, books dealing with sexuality in a positive way may be less likely to actually use the word "homosexuality"--in some circles it's become a more or less clinical term. Queer-positive books may be more likely to use words like gay, lesbian, queer, etc.
I thought about doing similar - but instead affecting the "What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?" section. Every time you intend to go on Amazon and buy something like Yes Means Yes, or any LGBT/feminist/social justice book you could first view something like '
A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality'. If enough people 'ended up' buying the same book then that book would appear on the page of the hateful book. And, you know, some kid who doesn't know what to do about thinking they're gay might end up seeing a link to a book about it being okay to be gay instead of some other anti-queer books.
Hey all,
I've decided to list some online bookstores that don't suck -- at least not to my knowledge -- on my blog, which you can get to by clicking on my name above. Since a lot of people have made lists of the de-ranked titles, I thought I'd list alternative places you can shop instead.
Please check out Better World Books.
It's a great company with a positive social and environmental impact.
I used to work there!
Betterworld.com or betterworldbooks.com
You won't be disappointed, I promise.
I would like to second this (have used them in the past), and add that I am currently in the process of switching to them completely after this whole Amazon debacle. The shipping is free, and a portion of the proceeds goes to fund global literacy.
I sent the bastards an angry letter. I've been a customer for nearly ten years now, and by god, I will spend another dime with them until they apologize and it's fixed. I will buy books elsewhere, I don't care how cheap they are.
I can't believe a book seller would support censorship like this, which is what it amounts to. My husband is even madder than I am, and I'm pretty mad. >:\
I'm right with you. I sent them an angry email, and then a second to request account closure (you can't do it yourself). Not surprisingly, they immediately responded to my complaint (with the "it's a glitch" line), but no action yet on closing my account.
I appreciate the (until now) quality search features that Amazon provides, but pair their near monopoly with this foray into censorship, and I'm making the jump that I've been toying with for awhile. Powell's and small retailers for me!
I'd cancel my account, but I've an order pending from last week (it was supposed to arrive last friday!)
I have to admit that I'm kind of hoping it was just a glitch or some idiot messing with the code, instead of overarching company policy. I read voraciously and like buying good quality used books through the marketplace-- it's cheaper and has a wider selection of SF/F than anything where I live. That said, I am boycotting them until the policy changes; depending on how they handle it, maybe forever.
This is just a huge bummer-- nobody wins. They lose customers and gain a reputation as a medievally-minded monolith who considers us incapable of self-censorship; we boycotting customers lose a website with a huge selection of products and nice prices.
yaargh, this is stupidity condensed.
Try www.bookmooch.com - not a bookstore, but a huge network of people swapping books after they're done with them. I haven't used it myself, but know people who rely on it for all their book purchases.
I love BookMooch!
All your LGBT and feminist books are belong to us.
This sucks. Majorly.
David Sarno's got an update in the LA Times, including this statement from Amazon:
This is such a crock! I've loved amazon and have spent mucho dollars there over the last 10 years but they ARE becoming like walmart. They're retailers, not damn censors.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy
There is a online petition you can sign, I don't know if someone posted it already.
I'll be buying my maps and magazines from Books-A-Million, a new book store in the Aiken Mall (replaced B. Dalton in the mall). I am irate that Amazon has de-ranked Playboy magazine, feminist books and other great material. It is pathetic that some companies are playing "Morality Police" instead of doing business.
Amazon is headquartered in Seattle (an LGBT-friendly city), and I am positive that there are many angry protests near their store over this.
this is the response i got after emailing a customer complaint:
Hello,
This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.
It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.
Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.
Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=cuwwqcuf3476302889
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=cuwwqcuf3476302889
Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.
To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.
Best regards,
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
i got the same email and i clicked on the link for NOT being satisfied with that response but the webpage contained an error and would not open. odd. i will accept that it was a mistake and they are fixing it but i think it is ham-fisted of them to refuse to apologize! why won't amazon say they are sorry?
This is interesting. The commenters over at broadsheet have quite a different tone than the ones over here.
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2009/04/13/amazon_statement/view/index1.html?show=all
Kind of upsetting really. I've consistently noticed lately that a lot of their commenters tend to have knee-jerk feminist-hatred responses. The articles are great, but I think I feel a lot more comfortable over here!
MRAs run rampant in the salon.com comments section. The admins there decided not to moderate any comments at all, so it's a nasty free-for-all. Many of the MRAs there have actually paid a yearly subscription fee just so they can rant/troll/bait people.
Some DVDs have now been de-ranked by Amazon, including Poison Ivy II: Lily and Poison Ivy: The New Seduction.
This is my first time commenting here!
Anyway, I found this really interesting. I don't come to this site often, but was wondering around the blogs that I don't visit all that often, only when I get the time, and found this in relation to Amazon's troubles:
http://i.gizmodo.com/5210424/hacker-claims-he-shoved-amazon-into-the-closet-using-inappropriate-flag-exploit
Perhaps we are not dealing with a homophobic company so much as the efforts of a particularly malicious hacker?
My customer complaint led to the "glitch" explanation. I like how Amazon keeps revising what they're saying happened. Makes me even MORE suspicious...
EXACTLY. The same happened to me. My first complaint was responded to as a glitch. I clicked "not happy with this explanation" and they came back with "cataloging error." Which is it, Amazon?
Care to reveal your source? Did you verify their legitimacy as an Amazon employee as this reporter did: http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166384.asp
I somewhat doubt the story you are reporting here.
this is not right at all. Amazon definitely did you wrong on this. I do not like to deal with them anyway. Marknad