Dear Amazon:

[tzikeh]

DON'T FUCK WITH THE INTERNET.

You'd think people would have learned this by now.

They're calling it a "glitch", and "fixing 'the problem'" as I type this. Shocking. Wonder if we'll ever find out what "the problem" was for real. Wanna bet me we won't?

If you don't know what I'm on about, this explains the entire schmuckfuckery. In a nutshell, Amazon is hiding GLBT books from basic searches, and stripping their rankings (whether the have even an inkling of romance in them or not, let alone physical contact), making them nigh-impossible to find. Here's a snippet of response to an email sent asking why:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Except no heterosexual adult books, magazines, movies, etc., are missing.

This from the company that suggested I might enjoy Best Gay Erotica 2007 because I'd ordered some Harry Potter book from them.

Huh. Funny. In that "And now, Joe Pesci will shoot you in the foot" kind of way.

Comments

[margueritem.livejournal.com]

This from the company that suggested I might enjoy Best Gay Erotica 2007 because I'd ordered some Harry Potter book from them.

I'm sorry, but that's hilarious. rotfl

[vickita.livejournal.com]

Wonder if we'll ever find out what "the problem" was for real. Wanna bet me we won't?

No bet, man. They'll never actually *admit* to caving to whatever the hell right-winger group it was that probably fussed at them. My bet is they got, like, three letters (in the same envelope) and folded like a house of cards.

Corporate interests != ( Moral giants || Mental giants )

You'd think people would have learned this by now.

See above. Heh.

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

To tie both the "glitch" explanation and dearauthor.com together, @ColleenLindsay pointed out a dearauthor.com post that explains Why Amazon cannot argue that this is a glitch. She has also retweeted information from Publishers Weekly and other sources as to titles affected.

I....think that this is the first time that I've actually fully superimposed one social medium onto another.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

A handful of heterosexual books are missing, actually -- but only a handful, and only the most sexually explicit (The Story of O is one), whereas GLBT books are being excluded just for existing, basically.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

:nod: Indeed. Best revenge so far: books about Amazon have been tag-bombed and now show up when you search for "gay porn". (Along with Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly books. *g*)

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

This from the company that suggested I might enjoy Best Gay Erotica 2007 because I'd ordered some Harry Potter book from them.

Yet that still makes more sense to me than this recommendation:

Those wacky Canadians!

As for them hiding GLBT books from searches, color me unsurprised.

[ratcreature]

I find it mindboggling that they broke their search engine so much that for some titles you can enter the author and title in their search box and still not get the book. That's worse than selling stuff under the counter in some dark corner! Basically they lie to your face when you ask for certain books. And they don't even offer an "include 'adult' results" checkbox anywhere I can see, like most other search functions that want to "protect the children" and impose net nannies onto you. WTF?

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but you aren't even *allowed to buy anything from Amazon until you are eighteen*.

So who the fuck are they "protecting", again?

[ratcreature]

They don't make any sense. For example the German Amazon could make a case for editing rankings, because actually here exist laws that forbid stores to advertise and display certain products that are officially deemed as "dangerous for children", which includes things like violent porn, certain computer games etc (it's a paternalistic overbearing nanny state kind of regulation that makes it impossible for adults to easily buy certain stuff, but that's another rant). And the German Amazon has special procedures in place that for example they only send these things to you via a delivery method that requires personal identification and age verification through a photo ID, because mail order businesses here are not allowed to sell these things otherwise, because here anything without an in person ID check doesn't count as sufficient age verification. But when I checked they still rank and give as search result computer games like "Resident Evil" and such. So they don't seem to be worrying excessively about actually existing child protection laws.