Amazon Censors Search Rankings, To “Protect” Us
Well, I’m breaking my rule about posting on Sundays. Here’s the situation:
Amazon.com decided, over the holiday weekend, to strip many titles they considered “adult” of sales rankings, making them impossible to find through Amazon’s search function. This is disproportionately affecting GLBT titles.
Books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Bastard Out Of Carolina have also been tagged as “adult” and removed from search rankings. They told Mark Probst it was to “protect” readers. Writers such as Maya Banks, Larissa Ione, and Jaci Burton have been affected. (Here’s Dear Author with updates. Meta Writer is also updating a list of writers affected.)
This is utter bullshit. In the first place, Amazon doesn’t have the right to try to police what we buy. Amazon seems to forget that we’re the people it’s supposed to be serving–and right now I’m speaking as a consumer, not an author.
As an author, the “this is utter bullshit” just gets more intense. For crying out loud. Brokeback Mountain, unsearchable and hence almost unbuyable through Amazon? The Well Of Loneliness? Come on. And for the sake of sweet Auntie Louise, you don’t need to f!cking protect me or anyone else from GLBT fiction.
Jeez. You can buy freaking sex toys on Amazon (though I prefer Babeland, personally), and they’re trying to dictate what we can buy to read?
I take a very dim view of anyone doing this, and Amazon’s status as the corporation most likely to shortchange small-press authors (oh, don’t even get me started about the POD thing not too long ago) and/or take over the world a la Skynet doesn’t help.
The Smart Bitches are now Googlebombing Amazon. (Entry and explanation here, googlebomb here: Amazon Rank.)
I’m horrified but not particularly shocked. This seems to be a decision taken in a meeting that got passed through a bunch of oatmeal-brained yesmen and has ended up opening a sh!tstorm. Amazon is making more and more of these decisions, and I think it’s telling that this is breaking over a holiday weekend when everyone (except those of us who read fiction someone gets their tit in a wringer about, apparently) is supposed to be in church or hanging out with their families.
So, go. Googlebomb. And let Amazon know you know what they’re up to: Amazon executive customer service email is: ecr@amazon.com and the customer service phone number is 1-800-201-7575. Dear Author has a template for a letter you can send, too, that’s pretty good. Be polite, but be firm. Do not let them get away with this.
Because if they haven’t already, next time they will take your books–either the ones you like to read, or the ones you write. And yeah, you can just sell them elsewhere–but Amazon is in this to serve US. Let’s not let them forget that, mmmkay?
ETA: Just got confirmation that a(n egregiously offensive) book titled “A Parent’s Guide To Preventing Homosexuality” is still searchable and sales-ranked through Amazon. Could we be any more blatant with the agenda, Amazon? I am now moving past horrified to outright disgusted.
ETA: As of right now, I’m getting some reports of a few books like Brokeback Mountain have had their rankings returned and are now searchable. However, I don’t find that Brokeback has any ranking when I check Amazon.com. We’ll see.
1. Amazon Censors Search Rankings To “Protect” Us
2. This Is Not A Glitch
3. Still Not A Glitch, But A Policy
4. (Update) Idiosyncratic Code?
5. Why I’m Bothering With AmazonFail
6. (Update) Seattle PI releases Amazon statement
7. Glitch, Ranking, & Porn
8. Days Later, Still AmazonFail
9. Glitch, Monoculture, Profit (AmazonFail Recap)
Related posts:
- Seattle PI has new #amazonfail statement
- Why I’m Bothering With #amazonfail
- This Is Not A Glitch, #amazonfail
Tags: amazonfail, books, we are not amused
April 12th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Hmmm, though I’m astigmatic and I think I left my glasses somewhere in the house where I can’t find them, I’m seeing a pattern there…
This is one of those times when I’m almost happy I live in a place where there’s no Amazon. >:)
April 12th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I’m not a member of the GLBT community although I support it in a lackadaisical kind of way, but I heard about this a few hours ago on a critique website I go to that’s been fighting to get recognition for the erotica genre, and I’ve been reading the comments on this petition. The whole situation is outrageous, not only because of the blatant discrimination, but because the horrifying paternalism, censorship, bad business practice and perhaps most annoying to me, illogical rationale.
You want to “protect” us from adult fiction? So you let the last 50 years of playboy centerfolds go through untouched, but something like the Picture of Dorian Gray is somehow problematic? Yeah, okay. Besides which, since when do you get to protect me from adult fiction? I’m bloody well an adult!
As a note about calling Amazon, though, one of the people who signed the petition did so with a note that when she called before signing, customer service hung up on her as soon as she asked about this new policy.
I guess I should be happy that I recently bought a bn membership and that their website is more aesthetically pleasing anyway. -sniff-
April 12th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
[...] Update: I know it hasn’t been that long since I posted, but Lilith Saintcrow had some more information on this Amazon craziness. Meta Writer has a list of affected writers and Dear Author has updates [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
That is that! No buying from Amazon until they correct this issue! I don’t care what the subject is, I am an adult, I can pay for it and they do not get to chose for me!
April 12th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
And (I accidently deleted this off the previous post) I support the BLGT community. As far as I know they pay their taxes, have jobs and breathe air etc. Therefore, they are the same as everyone else.
April 12th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Thanks for spreading the word, Lili! I’ve already posted the link for Amazon Rank on my LJ and Facebook. Vive la revolution!
April 12th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
[...] I’m not the only person who thinks this way. And, people are already compiling a list of the affected authors. (A list [...]
April 12th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I have been encouraging people to delete the payment options (that is to say, the credit card information) from their amazon accounts, and to inform amazon that they are doing so because of this issue. If amazon does not correct the problem, folks should follow up by deleting their entire account and washing their hands of that business. It seems utterly foolish to implement a business decision that any twit could have foreseen would have riled a significant portion of their customer base, especially in an economy such as this one. They’ll probably be coming for books that mention demon sex next, Lilith. Watch out! ;-p
April 12th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
http://gtpeachleigh.blogspot.com/2009/04/speedy-sunday.html
Wrote one about this.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
[...] disappeared, Amazon still had sales rankings for anal plugs. Writer of steamy future fantasies Lilith Saintcrow noted that while queer-and-adult books were de-ranked, A Parent’s Guide To Preventing [...]