Still Not A Glitch, But A Policy #amazonfail
AmazonFail proceeds apace. It’s almost 11AM Monday and still no response from Amazon about why they censored search rankings on GLBT, disability, feminist, feminist sexuality, and classic titles. Theories about this being just a huge trollage are running around, the most reasonable of which is tehdely’s.
I still do not buy the “glitch” and I do not buy trollage. Let me explain why.
Jane at Dear Author has a spreadsheet on the metadata most likely used to yank significant numbers of books. This does kick the trollage theory squarely in the pants, as this kind of thing–yanking whole categories–is not a catch-as-catch-can solution. Someone had to make a decision, allot resources, check, and implement it. This doesn’t happen overnight. (The other trollage theory–the one with an Internet jerkwad “taking responsibility” for the whole thing–is debunked here.)
When you add in the fact that Craig Seymour got talking points in February about protecting the hoi polloi readership and Mark Probst getting talking points on Saturday before this whole thing blew up, what you have is not a glitch but a policy. I repeat: Talking points in place for a specific complaint is not a glitch. It is a marker of a policy. Just look at the initial responses Seymour got when he complained of deranking in February. Go look, I’ll wait.
Now. Do you remember the Amazon POD fiasco? Cliffs Notes version: Amazon tried to take over a significant chunk of the print-on-demand industry by quietly removing “buy” buttons from small-press POD publishers who didn’t use Amazon’s POD service. The buttons would come back–if you switched to Amazon’s POD service, in essence giving them a bigger cut. It was greed pure and simple, and they started it with smaller presses and only backed off when there was a bit of a hullabaloo and larger presses (who still use POD technology) banded together to tell Amazon where to stick it.
We have the same pattern with AmazonFail. First very small press/authors are targeted, probably to gauge how big of a stink they’ll raise. If Amazon is not convinced the outcry will outweigh the (perhaps perceived) profits, it slowly mounts until Amazon has captured what it wants. The fact that Amazon has shot itself in the foot with this does not mean it wasn’t a deliberate step taken with another end in mind.
The only thing that has made AmazonFail so huge is that Amazon tried to move too fast. Had they slowly added small-press titles instead of clumsily employing a blanket deranking, this would have been a slow-simmer at best. Clumsy, egregiously offensive implementation has given us a chance to stop this in its tracks.
The silence coming from Amazon at the moment is being taken in many quarters as pure disdain. I am not sure I disagree.
Patrick at Making Light has pointed out the reasons why he doesn’t believe this was a Huge Conspiracy, either. I agree with qualifications. Once a corporation passes a certain number of cars in the parking lot, it becomes more of an organism than a group of individuals, and acts accordingly, with occasionally shocking bad judgment. (The liver of any partying college student would attest to this.) However, this does not excuse the open discrimination against GLBT, disability, and sexuality titles. As Patrick states:
None of which means that anyone shouldn’t be mad at Amazon, or that Amazon shouldn’t be embarrassed. Rather, it means that this is how the world works. A great deal of racism, homophobia, etc., happens not because anyone particularly wants to be racist or homophobic, but because the ground has been tilted that way by arrangements made long ago and if you’re not constantly on the lookout it’s easiest to roll downhill. (Making Light)
On the other hand, the lack of taking responsibility (still no statement from Amazon) and the expectation that thousands of people will be fobbed off with the excuse that it was “just a glitch” have by now assumed truly absurd proportions. The better response would be “Obviously we’ve fucked up. A full explanation and a fix will be available _____, or you will know why. Please accept our apologies.”
But I get the odd feeling that apologies–or meaningful action–may be long in coming.
Up next: Why AmazonFail Is Important
Now, links!
* Dear Author on metadata filters
* Wall Street Journal gets into the act
* The Guardian’s piece
* The oddly-hypnotic Twittersearch for #amazonfail, with several new tweets every minute–still
* Amazon Rank (Because that’s part of the fun of having your own blog.)
* Making Light’s Patrick on AmazonFail
* Trollbusting
* Kuri-ousity’s very good post
* Erica Friedman on what to DO about all this
ETA: Code garble fixed. Thanks!
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:
- This Is Not A Glitch, #amazonfail
- Seattle PI has new #amazonfail statement
- Amazon Censors Search Rankings, To “Protect” Us
Tags: amazonfail, books, we are not amused
April 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Just wanted to let you know that when this thing is posted at your lj the thing has in the end this big mess of code.
But keep up the good job.
I like that your following this and keeps me informed too. XD Heh.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Good points. I am guessing that the thunderous silence from Amazon is senior management deciding whether to walk the whole policy back or to hang tight.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Thank you for collating all this info and so many links on the topic to make it easy to follow!
April 14th, 2009 at 8:12 am
As I follow all of this to keep it updated and keep an archive, I keep coming back to your blog for your opinions and observations. Well done at staying ahead of the game on this.
- Katie
http://www.amazonGLBTranks.webs.com
April 14th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Amazon did not try to “take over a significant chunk of the POD industry.” They attempted to cut their losses by printing POD books in their warehouses instead of stocking them, for which they needed a legal contract with the publishers. The simplest way to achieve that was through Booksurge.
No one was denied access to Amazon. They were denied access to certain benefits Amazon offers. This is no different than Barnes & Noble reserving the best display space for books from publishers willing to pay a premium for placement.
Publishers who contract with Booksurge have their titles printed in Amazon’s warehouses, which means the books can ship immediately after being purchased. Those publishers don’t need to ship books to Amazon (for which they pay shipping–both ways). The required discount is higher than many were giving previously. Short-discounted books were costing Amazon money. No business, however, large, is required to continue to lose money if there’s a way to correct it. There was. They did. No plot, just a business decision.
Do they suck at communication? Oh, yeah. I get the feeling their PR department is run by their legal department, and lawyers are always counseling people not to say anything to anybody anytime. I base this on the language used in most of their press releases.
Do they occasionally do something that cuts them off at the knees? Also yeah. Don’t we all? Those who prefer to believe this latest event was yet another insidious plot are welcome to do so. I can, as I did previously, only point out that none of my GLBT books “disappeared,” and they are all clearly listed as such. In fact, on several titles sales were up these last few months.
April 14th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I disagree. There is a huge difference between “display space in a brick and mortar” and “taking away buy buttons until small presses use OUR POD system”. It was only natural from a corporate point of view for Amazon to try that, since their cut is bigger and more profitable on Booksurge titles and bigger corporations will naturally try to get more profit. But it was also for consumers and small presses to resist since further narrowing distribution to one single company is not in either’s interests. The resistance was quite successful.
I don’t know if you remember the screaming about this move of Amazon’s in detail, but I do because one of my publishers is a small press who stood firm (like many others) in the face of Amazon’s bullying. Amazon finally backed down a bit and implemented something much more limited after the hubbub died down. I see your contact information is from a press; I am mildly surprised to find a press who feels this way about the POD fiasco.
Also, just because none of your GLBT books disappeared does not mean that GLBT books were not disproportionately affected by whatever this was, along with feminist, female sexuality, disability and sex titles. This whole furor started because GLBT books were disappearing from Amazon’s search rankings, and when the other related categories got caught in the net is made people angry.
I agree that at this point the lack of response from Amazon is the biggest problem. But I also do not think this whole thing was a “glitch”.