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Amazon Says Glitch to Blame for "New" Adult Policy

Apr. 12th, 2009 at 9:52 PM
Amazon Says Glitch to Blame for "New" Adult Policy
By Rachel Deahl & Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 4/12/2009 5:49:00 PM
A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove adult titles from its sales ranking. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.

For most of the weekend on Twitter, in conversations with the hash tag "#amazonfail," users were discussing the fact that the e-tailer was removing the sales rankings for books that it deemed featured "adult content." Many readers, and writers, decried the fact that Amazon appears to be removing the sales ranking for titles that feature gay and lesbian characters and/or themes.

The director of the Erotic Authors Association, who goes by the pen name Erastes, told PW that many of her members "noticed their titles had been stripped of their sales rankings" on Amazon. One, Mark Probst, contacted a customer service representative at Amazon and wrote about the exchange on his blog. Probst wrote that the Amazon rep responded to his inquiry by saying that "'adult' material" is being excluded from appearing in "some searches and best seller lists" as a "consideration of our entire customer base."

Whether a glitch or new policy, titles like James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain are among the titles who have lost their ranking.

I call bullshit and backpeddling.
Tags: ,
mood: angry

Comments

(Leave a comment)
[info]ceria
Apr. 12th, 2009 09:23 pm (UTC)
Heh. I agree.

And since when are gay and lesbian novels the only ones with 'adult' content?
[info]wolfsilveroak
Apr. 13th, 2009 09:21 am (UTC)
Heh.

Even ones with 'erotica' in the descript were affected. Even if it had ONE line.

Yeah.
[info]morlith
Apr. 13th, 2009 10:10 am (UTC)
When you leave "adult" rankings up to your users and conservative idiots band together and take the time to ping every title that they're offended by.

Amazon was dumb by letting users state "offensive material" and they got bitten on the ass.
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