Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Does it also work as a blog title?  That way I can hit ‘em several ways at the same time.

Awesome “alternate usage” line!  I just linked my blog - I hope many many follow suit.

Michelle (@antinmitchfield)

This is such mindblowing crap.

off to link…

I linked at my blog.

Will repeated links provide the same result?

Amazon Rank

Let´s find out!

I’ll bookmark this on del.icio.us as amazon.com and amazonfail. Thanks!

I just linked from my blog. All of my Ellora’s Cave books have been stripped of their rank as well.

Anna J. Evans

I linked to the definition page on my LJ and will be encouraging people on my FList to do the same.

Made a post about this in my blog, also plan on bookmarking it in Delicious.

Bad move, Amazon!

Just like to add that Foucault’s The History of Sexuality has also been stripped of its sales ranking.

I’m a good friend of Candy’s here in the OR and had actually called her right around the time you IMed her about Google Bombing this. I’ve got the link up on both my blogs, and I thought I’d also drop you a line to say: you’re made of Win.

I totally *heart* you right now!
My books have been amazon ranked, too. But I can still search for and buy vibrating anal sex toys there, so all is not lost.

Off to link it both of my blogs

Can anybody give a quick run down for the best way to aid in the Google bomb?

Done!!! Thanks guys :)

Your alternative definition is almost perfect. May I suggest just one tiny improvement?

My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided saddlebacking was okay.”

Oh look, Backdoor Friends, a gay erotica anthology published through CreateSpace still has it’s ranking http://www.amazon.com/Backdoor-Friends-Complete-Collection-Stories/dp/1440461589/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239567947&sr=1-18

I may or may not be a bit miffed about this new Amazon stupidity. I may or may not still be in the process of hitting every online group I am with. :)

You can add me to the list.
My Samhain historical romances can be searched for and found, but put my Ellora’s Cave erotic, “Sunfire,” into the search engine and it doesn’t come up. The only way you can find it is by hitting one of the Samhain books, then hitting my author name and it’s listed there.
Not in the search engine any more. That’s the important thing, these books cannot be searched for any more.
I’m boycotting Amazon until they get this sorted out. And I’m putting your link on my website and taking out all the Amazon links I can find.

I should add that “Sunfire” is an m/f erotic romance.

I’d be happy to repost any other interesting examples of anti-Amazon cyberactivism like this on my ForeignPolicy blog on technology and politics - so do not hesitate to leave comments there with examples. thanks
http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/12/amazonfail_and_the_politics_of_anti_corporate_cyber_activism

Done.  Grrr.

My spam verification: car54 Srsly. LOL

I linked on my blog, Live Journal and at Blogher.com
http://kbgbabbles.blogspot.com/2009/04/amazon-why-have-you-forsaken-erotic.html

While Amazon may be made of fail, you, SB Sarah, are made of win.

Off to post this everywhere I can.

Linked on my blog:) They pulled A Little Harmless Sex, I guess because of the word Sex. Left all my other books, but ALHS has never had a sales rank at Kindle even though I get paid for copies sold.

I just put this website on my LJ:

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank

I repeat,

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank

I hope this´ll teach them… with everyone´s effort

I’ve linked at my blog as well.

Stephen Fry’s autobiography Moab Is My Washpot has lost its paperback rank but not its hardback rank.

Main difference I can spot, aside from thickness of cover? One’s list of categories includes “Gay & Lesbian > Biographies & Memoirs > Gay” and “Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Gay”, and one does not. Three guesses which is which, and you don’t need the first two.

Done and done.

I hope this doesn’t show up twice, so much traffic here…my first entry errored…

Done!  Linked it on my blog.  Grrr.

I’ve linked at my LJ, JF, and my story journal.  Folks on my FList are following suit, and a few people over at SF_Drama have also mentioned it.

Follow-up news from SF_Drama, apparently you can still get PORN and DILDOS from Amazon, but “Heather Has Two Mommies” is considered adult material.

Epic fail on the part of Amazon.  I’m boycotting for sure now.

I cannot tell you how disappointed and disgusted I am with Amazon.  Was Jeff Bezos born again or something?  This is just so stupid.  Why make people hunt for titles?  I linked this and the two Dear Author threads to my blog where I posted my email to Amazon.  In 2008 I spent over $2,000.00 on Amazon, mostly on books.  Obviously, I am and have been a very good customer of theirs for years.  I’ve started looking for alternatives.  The possibility of my buying a Kindle has gone from small to ‘Not in this lifetime’.  What a stupid, self-destructive move.

This reminds me of how eBay managed to turn a hugely successful site to a train wreck I avoid like the plague.  Hubris is a funny thing.  It destroys the largest companies and most successful people in ways their competitors/enemies could never dream of.

NinjaKitten, same thing for John Barrowman’s autobiography - paperback subjects only mentions drama and broadway, it’s there. The hardback has subject headings about gay and lesbian, it’s not.

I’ve sent an e-mail to Amazon and posted in my LJ complete with amazon rank link. I saw that Neil Gaiman (http://twitter.com/neilhimself) linked too, so that should help even more.

Done. I hate losing respect for a company I shop from (frequently). It already shows up as #10 when you google search amazon rank. (although not the definition, but this posting- hmmm….)

currently at 11 - let’s get this on to the first page!

Done.  And I just emptied my cart of the nearly $250.00 worth of merch I was going to be buying in the next few days.  Pity that.

I also posted a thread at the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards forums.  I had kept this fairly quiet, but I had entered, half as a lark, but didn’t progress past the quarterfinals.  Now I’m glad I didn’t advance and I made certain I said that in my post.

Asshats.

Opened up my abandoned blog to bomb (won’t work as well, but at least it means I can spam bomb). Some seem to be bombing the wrong page - this page has hit #1 (which is awesome) instead of the definition page. XD

@Reacher Fan: I suspect this is nothing to do with the beliefs of Jeff Bezos or anyone else at Amazon. Having seen enough of these things my assumption is that someone, or more likely a small, but organized group of people complained about having GLBT content shown to them on the from page or suggested to them via the “If you liked X you might also like Y” thing.

There are some people who don’t cope well with the existence of anything of which they do not approve. People whoare like that who do not approve of Teh Gay have had a very rough time of it lately. I suspect we’ll see a lot more of this in the coming weeks and months.  The only way to make it stop it to push back, hard.

Which is my way of saying—-Go Bitches!

FAIL. Already posted on my LJ, and I’ll be adding a thread on a message board I frequent.

Or rather, #1 on page 2 - sorry, didn’t know I was on page 2! :o

Wow what FAYL. Posted about it in my blog; spreading the word!

Now #10 with a lovely (Pornography) tag. sigh

Should we burn books we don’t approve of too?  This is a super dumb move.

Okay, I posted the link multiple places, including Facebook. Man, I hope it helps.

I’m going to go read an m/m romance now that I downloaded from a site that was not Amazon.

Number #2 result! Great job!

Posted the link in 4 places.

Done…I likened Bezos to The Brain and the person who suggested this crap to Pinky. Felt bad after doing it, as at least Pinky’s funny…Bigotry—it just won’t go the f*** away, will it?

I’m on it.  The link goes on my Links page and at the bottom of every page on my site.  And Twitter.

Hit #3. Yeah!

I linked on my LJ, and I also wanted to let you know that it’s already on the first page of the google results, but not the top yet.

http://corinnethewise.livejournal.com/91775.html

Hope this helps!

Wanna have fun google bombing?

There’s a thread about this over at the amazon forums under “romance.”

I wonder if my evil tendencies are heightened while under the influence of chocolate bunnies and peanut butter eggs?

Now number 2!!!!!!!!!!

It’s at #2 now. Damn, y’all move quickly.

Linked from my blog.  I’m also off to tip several much bigger blogs to hope they cover it.  Boo-urns, Amazon!

Word:  attack59 - you said a mouthful!

Great idea! I’ll post it now.

Also, please sign this petition, which will be sent to Amazon. http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-amazons-discriminating-censorship

Okay, this was bad enough when I though it was only fiction books. But nonfiction?! Books from lesbian parenting/pregnancies and self-help books to biographies (like one for Harvey Milk) are losing their rankings. WTF Amazon?!?

I think we’ve hit #1.

It just came up as the first search result for me.

Done and done.

Also, since someone above posted a link to a petition, I thought I’d note that the following one has been going for a few hours and has about 1750 signatories so far so it’s a little more entrenched.

Not that I’d discourage anyone from signing both!

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy

Linked from my blog as well.
What I don’t get is, if they sell it why not rank it? How does removing the ranking protect kids from adult content?

Posted to KindleBoards.com:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,6770.msg138182.html#msg138182

There was already a topic on it.

I posted a tread on the Amazon Erotic Romance forum as well.  The links to this site and Dear Author are all there.  I wonder if mods will pull the posts with the links.  :-)

thrilled to see it pop up at #1 on my search just now - when I posted on my blog it wasn’t even on 1st page.

ROCK ON BITCHES! :)

It’s still only #3 for me! :/
Y’all using quotations or has my google broken from excessive refreshing? (quoted does come up as #1 for me)

Erm. I just searched myself at Amazon, and all of my books are listed on the search page, with rankings on their specific pages. ?!?!

And since each of my titles includes the word “Erotic”...I’m a bit confused, as apparently they would be deranked and/or unsearchable.

I also searched Jaci Burton and Lora Leigh, and it appears that all of their books are also showing up.

So I’m either missing something…or something’s changed at Amazon.

How does removing the ranking protect kids from adult content?

They seem to be assuming that salacious content is being presented on the front page or via the recommendations feature. De-ranking makes the titles so hard to search that it’s probably fair to say that no one is going to see them by accident.

spam word: question59—Yeah, I have about 59 questions for the person who thought this de-ranking plan was a good idea.

First result for “Amazon Rank” now!

@ colette: Brokeback Mountain and Heather Has Two Mommies are coming up as well. And they have sales figures on their pages (although no #70 in this category, just number sold). Perhaps they’ve reversed the policy?

@earthgirl…good to know I’m not crazy. :-)

Hi! You don’t know me, but I’ve been reading for awhile (and sent a few people here for book IDs). I love the googlebomb, but I thought I’d point out ( if you hadn’t noticed) that the smartbitchestrashybooks URL is filtered out by google’s safesearch - which means that most people searching from jobs and public libraries won’t see the googlebomb, which is a shame and dilutes the power of it.

(I noticed this way back when you googlebombed Napoli and I, on a filtered computer, couldn’t tell what people were talking about; and it’s still happening.)

Would it be worth trying to do a backup googlebomb towards a site that doesn’t have any adult terms in the URL?

Amazon is not an Amazon, a fury free dame with bow on a horse, no, Amazon´s a Square, like they used to say in the sixties.
Does it also count if I post the link right here? I already posted it at two blogs.
Well, here goes:
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank/

Tsk, Moab is my Washpot from Stephen Fry deranked, and he´s one of my heroes. And the sad part is, that book is…drumroll…a biography! And yes, mr. Fry´s gay.  and.so.what.? she asked them pointedly.

Posted x3.

I’m going to make sure any links that are programmed to automatically direct to Amazon (goodreads etc) directs to B&N or some place else.

Sweet Dames and Gents,

better use this link for the petition, since it already has 2.108
petition votes (better gather them in one petition, I´d say)

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy

I posted it on my Facebook wall. Lots of my friends and family will not be thrilled by this bit of news.

did they do this on Easter figuring no one would be online to notice it happening?

I linked it to my LJ and Facebook. Hope it helps, good work ladies!

ROCK ON! Sharing the love and the linkage on my mainsite and other sites.

I love the internets. :)

Amazon might be a bunch of fucktarts, but they don’t stand a chance against the collective might of…well, the Internet. (“Oh, fuck, the Internet is here” indeed.)

Signed Sierra Dafoe’s petition and sen it on.

googled Amazon Rank and was first website I found…that´s good, yes?

And yes, Amazon IS Rank! Yuck, the stench from here…

And it’s made the LA Times Jacket Copy blog complete with a link back to the Smart Bitches!

And they also explain why versions of some books we’ve heard were removed may still be showing up on the rankings—depends on the edition and/or publisher.

did they do this on Easter figuring no one would be online to notice it happening?

@ev: My best guess it that they just didn’t think it through. Someone complained, so they labeled a bunch of things “adult” and didn’t really take into consideration all the implications of the way their system would handle that.  In fact, based on my time working for a major software company my guess is that the person who made the decision doesn’t have a clue how the software works and how things tie together. 

Generally stupidity is more common than conspiracy.

Heather Has Two Mommies does not have a sales rank as of now.

Stephen Fry’s and John Barrowman’s autobiographies have lost their ranking on the editions that have ‘gay’ in the categories or subjects they’ve been assigned, but have not lost the ranking on the editions that do NOT have the word in the categories or subjects.

Given that…
HHTM paperback (linked above) has no rank and has ‘gay & lesbian’  as a category, plus words like ‘lesbian’ and ‘homosexuality’ among its assigned subjects.

HHTM hardcover does have a sales rank, and has no words implying it’s not heteronormative in its category or subjects.

HHTM library binding has no rank, “Gay & Lesbian” in categories and ‘lebsian’ and ‘homosexuality’ in subjects.

HHTM library binding reprint is the same as normal library binding—no rank, key words listed.

HHTM special edition paperback has no rank, has keywords.

No, I don’t think they’ve reversed anything yet. :/

It wasn’t just because of Easter. I did a search on Thursday for Erastes’ Transgressions because we were featuring an excerpt on Unusual Historicals. Even thought it’s still listed as a Kindle edition, Transgressions in print did not come up in a search. Thought it was weird, but chalked it up to being an Amazon goof, not a deliberate policy. Asshats.

The search is #1 now, even without quotes, caps, etc. Nice work, bitches.

@Carrie Lofty Not just Thursday, I’ve been hearing that this has been going on from FEB - at least!

Results 1 - 10 of about 74,300,000 for Amazon Rank. (0.04 seconds)

Good

It’s also worth mentioning that not all LGBTQ-themed books have lost their rankings.

A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, for instance, is still ranked.

I’m thinking that makes their motives unmistakably clear.

Okay, I’m the first to admit that while computer-literate, I don’t get a lot of the nuts and bolts, like how exactly a google bomb works, etc.  That said, I guess my impression was that none of the gay/lesbian/bi/transgendered stuff was showing up unless you searched specific books, but I just did several searches of different things, including the word “erotica”, and a number of items showed up. 

Let me reiterate…I don’t get it.  Did Amazon switch back to the way it was in the wake of this response?  Is there something I’m simply missing?  I’d appreciate it if someone would fill me in.

Thanks.

And my word is anti66.  Very funny.

I’ve been hearing that this has been going on from FEB - at least!

And thus ends my attempt to be even-handed and fair by assuming that they didn’t understand all the implications of the adult label.

If this has been going on since February then they’ve had plenty of time to figure it out and correct it. Since they didn’t, I’m going back to my natural state of being cynical and angry. What were they thinking?

Done—fucking fuckwits fucking up fucking everything with their fuckwittery.  Idiocy—why can’t we outlaw general idiocy?  We can activate the cockroach-footed sphinter police for people’s love lives, but we can’t keep idiots from fucking with the arts?  *snarl*

@ Tina C—Not all the books have been stripped of their rankings, and of the books that have, not all of the editions have been stripped. So some still show up in searches. For example, search for “Unfriendly Fire”. The Kindle edition pops up, but nothing else, and a few days ago the book was on the top ten list. This thing has been applied incredibly unevenly, but the fact that it’s happening at all is still unacceptable.

My book still shows up on a search for “Messalina” but my sales rank is gone. I’ve linked your creative definition to my Full-Bodied (Book) Blog.

What utter madness…

re:malnpudl,

ha! that reeks of something aweful I hope it´s not

It’s at number one!

I’m putting a “Rank-stripped by Amazon 55 times” banner on my websites tomorrow.  With entry to your google bomb, ladies.

I’d do it tonight if I could, but I’ve got an evening’s worth of drive time coming up.

I suggest a second alternate definition:

Amazon Rank: n. The putrid smell of stupid currently emanating from Amazon…

LOL, Raven!

Watch this youtube vid by PolkaVlog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBW8gYwSoHE

comment and rate so it will appear on Most Watched or whatever it´s called on youtube

Came home from Easter dinner with the family, and found my LiveJournal flist full of google bombings! I put my little grenade in my journal and checked Google—the SB bomb is the #1 result. Go, go, Gadget Internet!

I’ve Facebooked with the customer service email address and also signed the Facebook petition protesting this.

This makes me so angry, I want to punch someone.

I just don’t understand how a retailer like Amazon can censor what is a best seller and what is not. They sell the books but won’t let the books take the claim to fame on their lists yet take all the profit for the sales of said books. Something is just not right.

If an author writes a book and Amazon sells it and said book sells tens of thousands of copies, the author is entitled to see their book on the best seller list.

Get your stuff together Amazon. You don’t want to lose customers due to your infantile censorship. If you sell the book, the author is entitled to your best sellers list.

Done.

It’s on my blog.

Done!
spam word: comes64.  I only hope so!

Yes!  The whole issue is up on Jezebel.com!  :)

I called their customer service number and told them I wasn’t buying from them until this straightened out, but frankly, this has left a bad taste in my mouth regarding their company.  This is their number: 1-800-201-7575.

Keep up the good work bitches!

Oh SB Sarah, can you add “amazon rankings” to your bomb? I’ve linked off of Facebook and will now add it to the Twitter. : )

I posted it on my lj blog and posted a note on my facebook page.

It would be bad enough if a big company like that chose not to sell “certain types” of books; that they’ll make profit off the books and then turn around and do this is just despicable.

Well, huzzah for the power of us...

And Raven, love your alternate definition!

All the rankings have been stripped from every MLR Press title on Amazon. Every last one of them.

Done and done.

Meanwhile, this book shows up in the Kindle store romance section when you do a sort by pub date, which is the only way to find newly listed books.

Well, how interesting.  Your blacklist words won’t even let me post the link because of the words in the name of the book.

Ok, do this.  Search Amazon using “Super Hero - College Break” as see what comes up.  And boy does the cover image come up.

Vicki

I’ve linked to Amazon Ranking as well, just to make sure it sticks up there. :) And I think I will be buying some of the books deranked from some nonAMazon company.

I just knew you’d be on top of this.

I can’t see it lasting long, quite apart from your efforts. Many of those books sell well and I don’t see publishers standing for it.

I just signed the petitions to Amazon.  What truly boggles my marketer mind (my profession) is that Amazon management did not anticipate the repercussions of this decision.  For an Internet-based company, their management shows a complete lack of understanding of how the Internet has empowered consumers.  Amazon will pay the price, literally, for this decision when they are forced to spend Mega $$$$$ to counteract the negative publicity.  There is a precedent for it, trust me.  I wonder if Oprah knows yet? ;-)  She just might do a take-back on her Kindle endorsement.

On the boards where I’m discussing this there seems a lot of disbelief. I’ve also stumbled across a couple writers who suggest that any sort of boycott hurts them more than helps them.

Hey, I’m not even boycotting at this point—more like a spending freeze, which means I might have to un-pre-order the Kindle edition of Heaving Bosoms—would get it elsewhere. I was like a squirrel in my buying habits anyhow—have plenty of nuts to enjoy. Um. I mean, plenty of books TBR.

I still believe they’re going to realize that they’ve made a huge mistake.

Now the question becomes: Which Focus on the Family-type monstrosity has been pressuring Amazon behind the scenes to enact this sly change? Amazon can hide behind their “adult content” shield, hoping people notice what that does and doesn’t include—without doing something as obvious as simply yanking the offending titles. I sincerely doubt it was Bezos suddenly finding God and hatin’ Teh Gheys. There had to have been the threat of a boycott behind this, with Amazon trying to have it all ways. Too bad they got caught.

wow, just did a search on my books, and none of my Aphrodisia books come up. My Bravas come up fine, but even if I search by title, I can’t find any of my other books on sale :(

does anyone know if borders.com or B&N online have done anything similar? (and sorry in advance if someone already answered that Q -late to the game and behind in the comments)

Aw, bless ya’ll! Your awesome is such that you make it easier for the rest of us to kick butt and take names. Thank you.

Can’t seem to get the “it’s just a glitch!” website to load.

I’ve linked to Amazon Rank and blogged about your wonderful post.  Thanks for your help leading the charge to tell Amazon they cannot do this to people who read and support them.  I noticed that my erotic novel Amorous Woman was no longer appearing on general searches on Thursday.  Then the sales rank disappeared.  I thought it was a small-scale thing, but nope, someone is trying to keep all of America safe from “adulthood.”  Except, a book of Playboy centerfolds is still okay—and how’s that?  Who is deciding these things?  I am totally ready to boycott them and they had been getting a lot of money from me.  I hope it hurts ‘em BAD.

Now the question becomes: Which Focus on the Family-type monstrosity has been pressuring Amazon behind the scenes to enact this sly change?

Yep.  And of course, the large-scale enacting over a long holiday weekend, when presumably, people are too busy to notice what’s going on with Teh Internets.

Just goes to show—Bitches and the Internets never really sleep.

Hola bitches!

Linked.  I love a good kerfuffle.

Wrote an entry and googlebomb for this.

http://gtpeachleigh.blogspot.com/2009/04/speedy-sunday.html

Googlebombed this on my own blog too and spread the word to my bookloving (and censorship hating) friends…  ;p

Now the question becomes: Which Focus on the Family-type monstrosity has been pressuring Amazon behind the scenes to enact this sly change?

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s NOM. That’s the National Organization for Marriage. I totally disagree with their whole reason for existing, which is purely to prevent gays from being able to be legally married. Their main project is 2M4M. Yes, you read that correctly. In their world that stands for 2 million for marriage.

They’ve already been mocked thoroughly for both their naming issues and their very expensive & very bad TV ad. (Seriously, are they the only people left on earth who have never seen LOLCats or a Craig’s List personals ad?)
 
If this turns out to be one more case where the internet turned their efforts into FAIL that will make my day.

The piling on of conspiracy theories surrounding this is making me ill. Why get out the pitchforks and torches when you have no facts? This is being blown way, way out of proportion.

No censorship has transpired.

Listen, I work at Amazon and there are a few things you should know:

1. The whole system is automated. Big computers running everything.
2. They sell adult material, like soft porn DVDs. In order to keep this stuff from popping up in front of children, the suppress the sales rank, which feeds the algorithm that decides what to display first, second, etc. This is no different than Google. Google is smarter in that they give you the option to see unfiltered results if you like.
3. Some low-level person in the company probably tinkered with the algorithm based upon some input or complaints, and totally fucked up the code. There’s NO evidence this was an executive mandate. If there was, I’ll quit.
As reported on Twitter, the suppression of search rankings was inconsistent. If this had been intentional it would have been more effective.
4. Do you really think Amazon is that stupid to piss of a huge community of consumers?
5. Amazon’s corporate culture is very supportive of the GLBT community, both internally and externally.

So stop with the witch trials already. You have choices in where to shop but don’t scream bloody murder and sign petitions until you understand the fucking facts.

Can’t seem to get the “it’s just a glitch!” website to load.

Me, either.  I need to know!

Also—the same does not apply at B&N, where a search for “Homosexuality” from the front page gives you this:

http://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=homosexuality

The first book apparently states that there is no biblical evidence condemning homosexuality.  The second book sounds deplorable.  Then we get fiction, memoir, and a children’s book about same sex male penguins raising a chick.

So, it’s limited to Amazon, I believe.

Yeah, a GLITCH.

I wish I could read that, but I get a connection timeout every time I click the link.  *sulk*

But this is total bullshit, and it pisses me off.

I can’t get into publishersweekly.com at all.

Also, I can only see the last two comments posted here. *scratches head*

The piling on of conspiracy theories surrounding this is making me ill. Why get out the pitchforks and torches when you have no facts? This is being blown way, way out of proportion.

No censorship has transpired.

I hate to sound ignorant, because maybe someone tinkering with the algorithm would do this, but how do you explain the fact that as far as I can see it is almost exclusively GLBT or “alternative lifestyle” (ie BDSM) books getting their rankings dropped?  Or the fact that you have an author whose ranking was dropped in FEBRUARY?

Or, the biggest give away to me that it wasn’t someone tinkering with the algorithm, THE EMAIL THAT MARK PROBST RECEIVED FROM AMAZON saying that it was an effort to “exclude ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists”?

If you’ll quit if it was an actual conscious decision, you’d better pack your desk and hand in your notice.  If it was a glitch in the algorithm, they would’ve said so, instead of giving some BS excuse about how they’re excluding “adult” content (in an email to an author who had the ranking dropped from one of his books, which was of a GLBT topic but NOT explicit).

“some low level person”  Really, Marshall? 

Amazon lets low level people implement code that impacts such a large number of books/keywords?  Doesn’t make me think very highly of them, if they do.

I’m buying from Bamm.com and have for years.

Marshall - I take your point - up to a point.  But sex toys and much strong heterosexual material like Playboy publications weren’t affected by the rankings change.  Gay themed material seems disproportionately affected, which indicates that someone was playing with the algorithms to an agenda They may well have done so without authority - in which case I guess they’re out of a job and a career.

Marshall,

It’s very simple.  We are making a fuss because if we didn’t, Amazon would never have an incentive to fix the ‘glitch’, as you call it, because no one would care.  And then the authors who make their money writing books would lose some of their livelihood, and the people who want to read them would have less access.  Even if it is completely, totally benign, we still need to make a big stink so that our community is not erased from one of the biggest purveyors of media products in the world.

The “glitch” article was just about four paragraphs long. The first said, “There’s a glitch,” while the rest restated what’s been said here about Mark Prost and a quote from Erastes. That’s it.

Now, this sounds like censorship to me. Even though nobody at Amazon wants to admit it.

Not that it is likely to affect my shopping at Amazon, since I, when I go there, tend to know the titles and authors that I want to buy.

It does, of course, mean that possible extra items may not be added to my shopping list. But then, when I buy erotica, I don’t go to Amazon anyway.

At Fictionwise, they don’t hide away the books with erotic content _because_ of that content. And that is currently my favorite bookstore. My only current complaint with Fictionwise (and to be fair, this isn’t Fictionwise’s fault at all, really) is that they won’t sell me certain titles because I don’t live in the US (three, so far, this year). One of those may be available elsewhere, but I haven’t seen the other two where they may be available to me. And no, I haven’t bothered to buy any of them.

That is the sort of thing that may inspire me to look for pirated editions, even though I truly prefer to pay for my books. The logic is simple: If I pay for a book I like, the author may write more like it.

Marshall,

It would be a lot easier to understand the facts if we had some from Amazon officially.  My email requesting information has not yet been answered—understandable given the sheer numbers of emails Amazon is likely receiving right now.  But if the ‘glitch’ explanation is actually true, why can’t Amazon post a brief message on the home page to that effect—and it doesn’t have to go ‘really, we aren’t being discriminatory even though all evidence suggests we are’—it could merely state something like ‘A technical difficulty has resulted in sales rankings being dropped from some searches.  We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it.’  Seems like that would give Amazon.Com a little more credibility through this situation.

Had a quickie look at one author that damned well _should_ have been affected by the ban and hasn’t: John Ringo. His books aren’t classified as Romance, but they definitely have “adult content”. And not just Vanilla sex, either. *gags*

Even if this is just an instance of shoddy programming, Amazon still needed the wake-up call. Test servers exist for a reason—people are fallible and so is their programming.

I’m willing to forgive Amazon if they aren’t guilty, but passing out vague statements doesn’t help their case, it just makes it look like they’re trying to think of a cover-up instead of an honest answer.

Major props. Google search on “amazon rank” and amazon rank both deliver your definition in the number one position!.

Click and behold the awesome sight, at least at the moment!!

Whatever the reason this has happened, it’s pretty dreadful and needs attention pronto.  I’m incredibly late to the party but went ahead and googlebombed too. Thanks for organizing this and I trust there will be some positive action soon.

For the glitch story to make sense Amazon is going to have to explain why their customer service people got the glitch confused with the company policy on adult content. The two don’t seem easily confused to me.

Or, the biggest give away to me that it wasn’t someone tinkering with the algorithm, THE EMAIL THAT MARK PROBST RECEIVED FROM AMAZON saying that it was an effort to “exclude ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists”?

That is an excellent point.

I wondered how long it would take for the words “witch hunt” and “pitchforks” to show up.

Yeah. No glitch. For what Amazon customer service said not 24 hours ago: http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html

Revisionist history at its finest. Yeah.

Marshall,

If it was a glitch, then why were the anti-homosexuality books left ranked and the pro-gay books de-ranked?  I’m not saying you have the answer, but if an algorithm was targeting gay books, shouldn’t it have done it to the anti-gay books with homosexuality in the title and description?

What I don’t get is the exclusion of adult content to begin with. It’s not like there are card wielding five year olds out there. And then it’s selective. I’ve always felt like you could find anything at Amazon. The ultimate general store…apparently not! Geez! I’m just so angry. I’m going to be screaming at people for days!

Note: I don’t have a website, so I placed a link to the Amazon Ranked on my facebook profile.

@Avrodul: “Had a quickie look at one author that damned well _should_ have been affected by the ban and hasn’t: John Ringo.”

I don’t mean to pick on you, but I’ve just seen this so many times today—“HOW COME AMAZON ISN’T BANNING X?”—and I know that people don’t really necessarily mean that Amazon should be banning John Ringo….  But I do feel obligated to say that I don’t think anything on Amazon should be censored, even if I hate the content, even if I hate the people who write it, even if I personally would rather never see it at all.

There are a lot of books I’d rather not read.  There are not very many books that I can think of that damned well should be banned.

It’s interesting to note that amazon’s search feature has no trouble bringing up a wide variety of sex toys.  In fact, search the word “rabbit” on amazon.com and see what happens.

Oh, and I’m running a contest on my blog for anyone who emails, signs the petition, or otherwise aids the cause:

http://sierradafoe.com/blog/?p=67

Just doin’ my bit :-)

“It’s a glitch!”

I was waiting for that excuse. Figured it wouldn’t be until Monday morning though. And yes, it’s an excuse, because it’s just way too targeted not be something done deliberately.

Perhaps the “adult book sales” were ranking so high they were going to bump the “regular books” off the bestseller lists and someone got antsy? Maybe they didn’t want to risk becoming known as the online version of an adult book store?

One of the reasons I buy erotica and m/m fiction from Amazon is because I can browse there. Most of the local stores in my area focus only on the ready-made “bestsellers” and you can’t find much else. Not just erotica either, I can’t find many midlist authors in romance or SF/F on the shelf. Sure, they’ll order them, but Amazon (and their competitors) will deliver to my door.

Nialla, can you imagine what a world of hurt the were gonna be in when everyone who WASN’T on the internet Easter Sunday/Palm Sunday (orthodox) signed in tomorrow morning and found out about this? The “backpedal” today was damage control.

Once again: NO GLITCH!
http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html

Ok, i understand the principle of the problem, and i don’t at all like the idea of this automatically “censoring” gay lit along with “erotica” or censoring erotica in the first place (let’s all grow up, please!)

But here’s what i don’t understand - practically speaking - is this an actual problem?  I am an ocassional Amazon user (whenever i have money and am looking for something specific), but i don’t really use these sales rankings.  Does anybody?  If so… why? 

If i heard that they weren’t selling adult stuff at all, well that would stupid, but i don’t know… i think it’s a bit of a tempest in a tea cup.  I think we’d be better off putting our energies toward stuff like anti-Prop 8 and cheering Iowa’s court decision.  Things that are a little less ephemeral.

The anthology one of my novellas appears in, A RED HOT VALENTINE’S DAY, has been stripped of its ranking:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Hot-Valentines-Day-Avon/dp/0061689394/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239592584&sr=1-6

Quick, somebody create a Wikipedia entry for “amazon rank”.

But here’s what i don’t understand - practically speaking - is this an actual problem?  I am an ocassional Amazon user (whenever i have money and am looking for something specific), but i don’t really use these sales rankings.  Does anybody?  If so… why?

Caranfin, go to DearAuthor here. Jane explains why this matters. She even organizes it helpfully with headers.

@Caranfin “But here’s what i don’t understand - practically speaking - is this an actual problem?  I am an ocassional Amazon user (whenever i have money and am looking for something specific), but i don’t really use these sales rankings.  Does anybody?  If so… why?”

Everyone uses the Amazon Sales Ranking, because the Amazon Rank is used to determine how items are displayed in a search.  Thus, my friend Jackie Barbosa’s debut novel, coming out from Amazon—if you go to Amazon and type in her name “Jackie Barbosa” and search “All Departments” you get no hits.  None.

Or go to Amazon and search “All Departments” for “homosexuality” and see what gets returned first now that all of the GBLTQ titles have had their sales ranks stripped.

Amazon Sales Rank determine what you, the consumer, are shown.  When a book is stripped of its sales rank it becomes harder to locate even if you know what you’re looking for, and if you just have general idea of the sort of book you want, it becomes impossible to find.

That’s how it affects you.

I have a story in this de-ranked book:

http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Valentine-Bella-After-Dark/dp/1594930619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239594087&sr=1-1

(Jackie, maybe they just hate Valentine’s Day.)

Has it been fixed? I heard Giovanni’s Room and Brokeback Mt. had been banned, but they come up just fine for me under search.

I’ve had trouble getting this page to load today I guess because of all the traffic.

Thanks Sarah/ Candy and Jane at DA for keeping this updated! Some of the things that I’ve wanted to ask, comment on are not original, many of the same points have been brought up already but here’s my 2 cents…

If Amazon sells a book, they should rank the book.  It’s just that simple. If they do not then what determines their ranking system? It’s not sales! That’s just suspicous shady business.

This type of censorship is something you’d expect to hear of countries that commonly censor internet content, not here in America!

Adults shop at Amazon, you have to have a credit card to shop at Amazon. You have to be 18 to get a credit card.

Let parents police their kids. Let parents add Amazon to their protective software programs as dangerous content. Let Amazon put protections in place such as “adult content, you must be 18 to view these results ”  or “to view results without adult content click here”

If Amazon is so concerned about what kids may or may not view then why do they allow Kindle free first chapters of adult books?

It is hypocritical for Amazon to say Gay / Lesbian/ Erotica/ Disablity Sex / Pro- Homosexuality Psychology text books are objectional and seeing these books in search results threaten people, but yet , like stated above, you can type in rabbit and get photographic results of masterbatory tools.

After seeing the response Amazon has emailed to Mark Probst and others there is no way anyone can accept “a glitch” as the reason why this has happened. Amazon should respect it’s customers intelligence and provide a better reason and apology.

@Lisa—The hardcover of Brokeback comes up, but it’s not tagged as gay under “Look for Similar Items by Category.” There are two voluntary “Tags Customers Associate with this Product” labels of “gay,” but that’s it. You have to click on Proulx’s name to find the paperback edition, and its sales rank has been stripped. I’m guessing that the paperback edition (147 customer reviews) was more popular than the hardback (which has 5 customer reviews and a sales rank of 590,000+). The paperback is hella tagged under “similar items” as being gay gay gay!

well amazon just lost a BIG customer… i buy a lot of stuff for myself and even more for work…. they just lost thousands and i literally mean thousands just from me…

I’m guessing that the paperback edition (147 customer reviews) was more popular than the hardback (which has 5 customer reviews and a sales rank of 590,000+).

Also, if you do a search for Brokeback Mountain from the front page, the paperback editions that come up at the top of the search list are either sold through Amazon Marketplace, rather than straight from Amazon, or they’re import editions.

@Carrie Lofty

Thank you. This is ridiculous.

And also, just to reiterate THIS IS NOT A GLITCH. Amazon is trying to say that it was, but I have multiple friends who’ve gotten emails from Amazon saying it’s a new policy on “adult content.”

Screw Amazon. I was going to get a Kindle—what else is good?

@Sierra Dafoe - Yes, I imagine the customer service department demanded something be put out now, to avoid the absolute disaster they’d have on their hands by Monday. If they can get their glitch story out now, it might stop some emails from being fired or calls being made until more is known.

However, I have to say it… seems their “glitch” is awfully queer. *cough*

@Caranfin - I use bestseller lists a lot to keep up with titles I might not have heard about yet in particular categories, and if I’m trying to get ideas about gift books. If books have no rank, they’re automatically not going to appear on those lists.

Very interesting potential explanation from http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html

“It’s obvious Amazon has some sort of automatic mechanism that marks a book as “adult” after too many people have complained about it. It’s also obvious that there aren’t too many people using this feature, as indicated by the easy availability (and search ranking) of pornography and sex toys and other seemingly “objectionable” materials, otherwise almost all of those items would have been flagged by this point. So somebody is going around and very deliberately flagging only LGBT(QQI)/feminist/survivor content on Amazon until it is unranked and becomes much more difficult to find.”

He makes a very interesting parallel to the “Warriors of Light”/LJ mad panic a couple of years ago… and overall has a plausible potential explanation for what’s going on at Amazon (which, given that the choices seem to be “massive incredible stupid” and “crazy conspiracy,” is not saying much, really…).

JD

So in my own eReader Olympics- Sony just won the bronze, silver AND gold.

Amazon won’t be seeing any money from me.

I don’t buy the ‘glitch’ excuse either. That’s one of the weakest spins I’ve heard in PR land for quite some time now.

I read that, Jane Drew, and it seems to make sense until you really ponder it. Even in the comments for that blog:

http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html?thread=259319#t259319

Also, customer service hasn’t said anything like this, but rather started out talking about a new policy. Now they’re talking about a glitch.

I would like to believe Amazon was the victim here, but I’m not seeing it.

I don’t believe in the theory posed at the link by Jane Drew.  The evidence clearly shows that it is not based on customer objection but something more objective (and thereby a bit more objectionable).

In addition to the obvious homophobia, i’m worried about what this means for the future of digital censorship: http://urbzen.com/2009/04/12/making-books-disappear/

@Jane Drew:

If that were to turn out to be the case, then someone should humbly suggest that those angered by this policy (not an insignificant number) go to Amazon’s site and start flagging Christian/Evangelical/Dominionist-leaning material as offensive to see if the results are similar.

Amazon is a lot of things, and they’ve shown before now that the Amazon corporate hive-mind is capable of making wondrously ill-considered judgment calls.  But Amazon is not generally guilty of willful stupidity, and it would take a pretty high level of willful stupidity for them to deliberately set out on a censorship campaign of the kind postulated by this weekend’s detractors.

Clearly, there is a policy in place for de-ranking content explicitly understood to be “adult”, per the February incident—but as Marshall notes, that policy is almost certainly there to (attempt to) deal with a very narrow range of material.  The February incident suggests that the policy may not have been appropriately applied in the specific case (and/or may be due for revision), but by itself doesn’t establish a pattern of abuse.

The abrupt explosion of de-rankings observed this weekend looks very much like a troll/Bantown event of the sort “tehdely” postulates…with one major caveat.  As various observers have noted, it’s relatively difficult for casual Websurfers to directly tweak the Amazon database; in order for the present fiasco to reflect a troll/Bantown attack, the trolls would theoretically need “inside” access to the database.

The conclusion?  It seems extremely likely to me that Amazon’s database has been hacked in some way.  Personally, I’ve been wondering if tehdely‘s hypothetical trolls have a Conficker virus-programmer in their back pocket, but that’s only one possible avenue of infection, and the rapid, only semi-consistent-looking pattern of de-rankings really does look a heck of a lot like cascading database corruption, just as Marshall suggests above.

As for the “it’s a glitch” spokes-comment—remember that (1) this is a Major Holiday Weekend, (2) the PR person on call for emergencies does not necessarily speak or understand CodeWrangling, and (3) even if she does, it’s not in Amazon’s corporate interests to admit that either (a) they’ve been successfully hacked, and/or (b) that whatever the source of the problem, the Amazon database is really, really hosed right now, and it’s going to take the programmers (who also have to be called in from egg hunts, family brunches, etc.) awhile to fix it.  Thus, while the comment as released is clearly a stalling tactic and a woefully inadequate summation of the problem, it’s both possible and likely that the PR person was doing the best she could with limited information at her disposal.

Is this a major problem?  Absolutely.  But is it malice on Amazon’s part?  It’s simply too early to tell.  We need more and better information than we have right now.

wow, lucky its a holiday so corporate PR is still on holidays otherwise i think they might be worried. 

Is this the first real major brand to be ripped apart by twitter and then assisted by bloggers?

Just posted this to the comics community I’m a part of. (One of the books Amazon de-listed was a popular award winning manga, Antique Bakery.) Hopefully some of that crowd will be joining in. Hell hath no fury like yaoi and slash fangirls scorned.

This is my view on their public burning….

http://thelostagency.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/amazon-burned-at-the-stake/

I’m not sure anyone thinks this is deliberate malice. Maybe some do. ::shrug:: That isn’t the point. No matter what happened, or how it happened, it needs to be both protested and corrected.

Protested to make sure Amazon truly hears the voice of the consumer, even if it was somewhat of a mix up. I’m not buying it was complete happenstance though.

I can buy that they weren’t trying to pick up a lot of the books that got de-ranked, and that they want to make the site more family friendly, and that the algorithms got all messed up. They still harmed writers, they still inconvenienced readers. They still did a stupid thing.

I don’t have children. I have me. And my husband who acts like a child, but still. When I go to Amazon I want to find the book I want and sorta expect that people are working to make the search function more effective instead of making me count to 100 and chant Ollie Ollie Oxen Free while my book hides from me behind all sorts of less relevant items.

It’s an online bookstore. Even if the censorship is a complete accident, it’s the exact opposite of what they’re meant to represent. Free speech/censorship bad/knowledge good—and wanting to sell more product—are all being screwed over here.

And I’m an Amazon fan—spend a sick amount of money with them. Own 2 Kindle 2s—one for me and one for my husband. Just wrote a sappy glowing report on my Kindle love, not 2 days ago. So, it’s not like I’m looking to pick a fight with a company I usually love.

I believe they’re going to fix this, cannot see a scenario where they won’t, but I’m willing to find my ebooks elsewhere and let them pay for my whispernet if I’m mistaken.

Because there is no choice for me.

I refuse to help them make writers feel second class. I refuse to help them make readers feel dirty or like they have to duck down some dark alley. So, even while I believe they will make it okay, it’s not okay yet—and I’m glad people are making that clear.

fire26—sure, if “26” is responsible.

Susie Bright, smart bitch if there ever was one, weights in: http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2009/04/dear-jeff-bezos-lets-be-adults-shall-we.html

Cyberactivism in full force….fascinating to watch!  Let’s see how they dig themselves out of this hole. In a similar vein Amber Quill has this warning for all those using Paypal to purchase books.  Has anyone experienced the sort of ‘freezing’ of their account? It has me worried.

Ah, man—guys, you’re getting played.

http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html

I don’t work for Amazon, but I build taxonomies for matching algorithms.  There are a million ways for an algorithm to go wrong and throw a glitch like the one we’re seeing now.  It can be as simple as a single tag getting reclassified, or a node jumping, or just plain incompetence.  It happens all the time.  Ironically, having a mandate to create a “separate and not quite as equal” zone for LGBT and feminist works would require a LOT of adherence and an enormous amount of effort.  Everyone in the tech crew would have to be in on it, at least.

I think this is a simple case of Amazon’s user-generated complaints system getting exploited by a crew of trolls.  All the hallmarks are there, including the fired-up and reactionary marginalized community, the major internet entity, and the holiday weekend.  Ask yourself this:  when has Amazon ever shown an anti-LGBT bias?  What would they possibly have to gain from this incredibly unsubtle manipulation? 

Just—take a deep breath and actually think about all the potential players and the stakes.  Deliberate action by Amazon to marginalize women and gays is pretty far down on my list of possible realities, and I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of kids in hoodies cracking up about all the outraged “I’m canceling my account!” messages.

Forgot to add: there is no conflict between the “adult” policy and a glitch.  I have no idea why people keep waving around a pretty generic brushoff email as “policy, in writing!”  Of course they’re going to have certain rules in place to inflate or deflate search results artificially, that’s how matching becomes effective.  But if they’re finding content in that “adult” filter section that’s not meant to be there, then there’s a glitch.

It’s not that sinister, people.  It needs to be fixed, and should have been looked into way back in February, but a lot of this is just coming off as silly.

To all those who claim this was an outside troll attack exploiting a reporting system, would you please point me to that system?

There are two different feedback options on books that I’ve found.

For paperbacks there’s a generic comment form, where you have to enter text, but no automated ‘report as porn’ option.

ONLY for Kindle editions is there a feedback option to report ‘inappropriate content’ aka porn directly, which does not explain why many Kindle editions still have their ranking whereas the paper versions of the same titles have had their rankings removed.

Please provide proof how this supposed concerted outside attack has happened, because it’s unclear to me how it could have with the facts as I found them on the site.

Grace, you may want to have a peek at the metadata of the books whose rankings have been removed as opposed to those that haven’t.  It’s kind of ‘funny’ how only books with tags of ‘erotic’, ‘sex’ and ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘transgender’ seem to be affected.  That’s a peculiar selection of tags to have been accidentally reclassified.

But even if this was outside attack rather than inside policy, it casts a very poor light on Amazon’s IT department and their abilities to protect their system.  Especially since they were aware of how their ‘report’ button on reviews has been abused after the not so distant harassment/manipulation scandal.

With regard to the people who are saying this is just an elaborate troll, let me flat-out disagree. There have been too many books, across too many disciplines, fiction and non-fiction, for this to have been some sort of glitch or troll. This is something that scooped up erotica and disabled sexuality…Radclyffe Hall and Michel Foucault. No, there’s something more going on here.

I investigate failures such as these in my work life. For example, code gets implemented and it has unusual results, such as some transactions not processing the way we would expect. Further investigation will find the issue:  a pre-existing problem exposed by the installation of the new code, or, perhaps, a parameter that was set incorrectly.

However, to get to that point, in a reputable and not rogue organization, there is a procedure. A request is made to have a function or a feature implemented. Resources are allocated; a programmer (or more) is assigned to write code. That code is put into a test environment and run through its paces. Issues that come up in test are corrected and the code is run through more testing. Then a plan for implementation is put forward, the impacted groups review and sign off on it, a time is chosen to roll out the code when it will have the least impact upon end users and customers. The code is rolled out, end users test the code and hopefully everything goes as planned. That’s what a reputable organization does…and, I can tell you, if it doesn’t happen that way, the sh*train will fall.

Now, maybe Amazon’s coding people pushed through a change that management didn’t know about. I have no idea. Maybe this was couched as a “feature” to improve the family-friendly nature of the Amazon website (trying to think of ways to smuggle something like this in). Maybe the proponents of this code misrepresented what it was supposed to do to the management who signed off on the change

But one thing is clear—you don’t make this big of a change, impacting across thousands of books that sell thousands of copies a day, and it be a “troll.” This is most definitely not a troll. This was a deliberate action, but I’m thinking that the people who did it didn’t have a clue as to what kind of cr*p would rain down on their heads. They thought they could sneak it in and it wouldn’t be noticed.

And, if Amazon is such an incompetent organization that just Any Ole Code can get into its system, I would worry about buying books from them. In fact, Amazon should give us a Root Cause Analysis of what went wrong here, to reassure us, the readers who buy from Amazon and the authors who sell on Amazon, that this kind of a screwup won’t happen again.

I order hardly anything from Amazon any more - why would I, when I can get pretty much everything bookish from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk with free shipping worldwide?

Parcels usually arrive within a week (much faster than Amazon), and did I mention free shipping? - which if you’re not in a country where you can get free shipping from Amazon, is a big deal - even if a book isn’t discounted, it’s rare that Amazon is cheaper (and most things are cheaper than if I buy locally, too, sad to say). 

Somewhere in the Amazonian behemoth is some sort of hip pocket, so maybe others will be interested in this alternative.  I have no shares; just a customer.

Glitch, stupid decision, or some idiot not paying attention… any way you look at it, Amazon stepped in this pile of *ick!* big time.

Personally, I think google-bombing is a great idea, and blogged about your idea on Romance Lives Forever

Posted the definition to two of the highest trafficked sites I read (Gawker and Plastic), and wrote an email to Amazon on their Customer Service link.  Also put everything from my cart into “save” to see if they fix it.  If not, the account is getting canceled.

Thanks for stepping up again, SMTB!

which84 emails will finally get Amazon to apologize?

Quit yer bitchin’ over the fascist policies of Amazon and go support the *real* Amazon bookstore!

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see how the fake Amazon went after the little people, and google for the rest. IF we give our money (our power) to those like the fake Amazon who refuse to support us, we deserve the lack of support they return to us. Keep your money, your power, in our communities. It will make us stronger.

The REAL Amazon Bookstore

www.amazonfembks.com

Amazon.com is saying “As an added service for customers, authors, publishers, artists, labels, and studios, we show how items in our catalog are selling. The lower the number, the higher the sales for that particular item. The calculation is based on Amazon.com sales and is updated each hour to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold on Amazon.com. “

Amazon.co.uk is saying “The calculation is based entirely on Amazon.co.uk sales and is updated regularly.” and “Our Sales Rank figures are intended to be of general interest.”

The UK Government says at http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/yourrights/rightsindifferentsettings/shopsandservices/pages/shopsservicesclubsandassociations.aspx
that
“Businesses and organisations, when providing services to people, cannot discriminate unlawfully on the grounds of their disability, race, gender, religion or belief or sexual orientation. This applies whether services are provided face-to-face, by telephone or online, and whether the services must be paid for or are provided free of charge.”

Amazon, provided that there is a demonstrable bias in their rankings against GLTB books which is not based on sales, is providing misleading information on how their sales ranks are compiled, and that, if there is discrimination against GLTB interests in providing the service of publishing those ranks, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk may well be acting unlawfully in UK law.

I’d be interested to hear what the legal position is in other jurisdictions.  Sorry for the length of this post.

Don’t forget to vote on the Urban Dictionary definition of Amazon rank:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=amazon+rank

Amazon is a private corporation with one obligation: to secure a return on investment for their shareholders.

Not to be pedantic, but it’s a public company not a private one, and as such can be influenced by those shareholders they are earning money for. Annual meeting, anyone?

Bravo to Michelle R’s post of 12 April—especially her last paragraph!

FWIW, Patrick Hayden’s guess is more or less what mine was—-someone complained, a fix was attempted and then the whole thing got totally out of hand.

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011173.html

I include the link mainly because I think his final point is true and well worth keeping in mind.

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.

Thank you, Mary.

Ick, just went ahead and canceled all my pre-orders. Several seasons of TV shows. A computer game. A handful of books that just did not seem Kindle friendly. A couple pre-orders for Kindle. My Kindle subscriptions for the NYT, Newsweek, Times… The Kindle stuff didn’t ask for a reason for cancel, but the TV and print stuff did, and I told them exactly why and when the orders would be reinstated.

When I went to my email to see if Amazon responded to my complaint email, I found that they hadn’t. But the cemetery sent me a final mock-up on my mother’s headstone. Great way to start the day.

> I think this is a simple case of Amazon’s user-generated complaints
> system getting exploited by a crew of trolls.

This seems wildly optimistic.

For one thing, there is no simple ‘complaint system’.  Books *can* be tagged as ‘adult’,  but a lot of the ones which have been deranked weren’t.  All three of my books have gone, and the only tags they have in common are ‘dystopia’ and ‘gay science fiction’.  And if Amazon are automatically classifying all ‘gay science fiction’ as adult, then that’s EXACTLY the behaviour that people are complaining about. ‘Gay’ =\= ‘adult’.

I’m sure they are automatically banning by keyword, but the results fit far more closely the suggestions that they’re banning by publisher keywords.  This isn’t trolling by an outside group, this is fail entirely internal to Amazon.

@SBSarah

> but Amazon is a private corporation with one obligation: to
> secure a return on investment for their shareholders.

And to follow the law.  I cannot possibly see how this isn’t illegal discrimination under UK law, and amazon.co.uk is doing exactly the same thing as amazon.com.

I’ve blogged about it here and here. I also took down my Amazon Associates link on my sidebar, though I still have the header up, and replaced it with an Amazon Rank link. :)

Some smug fuckstick is taking credit for gaming the system:
http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

How true this may be is a matter of conjecture.

I especially like the comments to that post, Brandi, wherein Smart Bitches and Jezebel are listed as the responses of the “libtards.”

It’s not really that early, but I’m not a huge fan of starting off my week with lack of faith in humanity.

(FWIW, I am extremely skeptical of that person’s claims. Taking credit for this will gain him instantaneous internet fame, but the whole ‘motive’ is just positively inane. [hm. slant rhyme.] I don’t understand computer coding at all, so I’ve no idea if what he said he did could do this.)

I’ve got CNN online ‘on’ in the background while I work and they just mentioned this story as coming up. Asking views to share their opinons, etc.

Also listed on CNN’s main page (www.cnn.com) under the Tech header!

Okay…that should have been “viewers” now “views.” Sigh. Must be Monday…

True story: I have been reading since I was three.  Going downtown for doctor’s appointments, we would pass a building clearly marked “ADULT BOOKS.”  I was always frustrated when my parents laughed at me for wanting to stop there and see the “adult books”; I thought that an adult bookstore must be where they kept the really good books, while they stuck us kids with the boring picture books.

Nowadays, I think I was right.  There’s no such thing as an adult book.  There are just books.  We are the adults; we should be able to make these decisions for ourselves.

More insightful insight here:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011173.html

This one injects a healthy dose of “never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” (aka Hanlon’s Razor) into the discussion.