amazon.com offensive and disgusting--read anyway

[ambeaux]

Over the last few days the word on the web is that Amazon.com has lost their minds. I first read about it from an author's blog talking about how a YA book he'd written ("The Filly.") had the sales ranking taken away. What does that even mean and why should we care, right? The sales ranking system on Amazon.com defines the ease of finding a

Comments

[romp]

No Easter dinner for Amazon execs. Amazonfail, indeed.

[revolucinations]

that is incredible. i was planning on ordering a book from amazon next week, but now i won't be. things like this just make me so sad. sometimes i forget just how fucked up things are for the queers because i am happily isolated from it within my little online mama circle, but things are fucked up.

[clashfan]

Here's their take on it:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_en_ot/books_amazon

[ambeaux]

I saw this last night and I think it made things worse.

I've been working with and around computers since 1991 and I have see more than my fair share of glitches and it's pretty clear that they don't have the ability to discriminate--only humans are capable of that. Amazon may have been the victim of human error, outside manipulation from an organized group who wanted to make them look bad etc but what did not happen was some random computer error.

I think they should have started with an apology, made a firm statement reflecting their values (non-homophobic if that's what they would like us to believe) and committed to solving/addressing whatever the problem was even if they weren't sure at that time what exactly the problem was. Since they have had authors complaining to them about this 'glitch' since February, the onus is on them to demonstrate that what happened is not a reflection of their policy and instead they came across as weak and not particularly concerned.

Thank god there's Powell's!

[clashfan]

I agree that Powell's is better than Amazon!

I also agree that Amazon should have been more up front about this. But the story is still unfolding...was it Weev? Was it a bad French translation? Was it some disgruntled inside job by a middle manager or IT guy? My guess is that until they figured out exactly what happened, they didn't want to say much of anything.

I can tell you what it wasn't...it was not a deliberate effort from Amazon, as a corporate whole, to discriminate against queer folks. I will eat a shoe if Amazon all of a sudden decided to do this. And I think that leaping to conclusions is counter-productive.

[foolsgoldxo]

absolutely - no more bizness from this house.