Amazon Dot Fail

[jedusor]

Okay, gotta do my part to spread the news about this. Amazon has removed sales rankings from a bunch of GLBT books, citing their "adult" nature. It sounds like they've deranked a few hardcore heterosexual erotica books too, but most of the straight sex has been left alone. Some details here. Neil Gaiman weighed in over on his Twitter, and a bunch of other folks are pissed off too.

I'm writing an e-mail to Amazon letting them know that I'm not cool with this. I encourage you to do the same, and spread the word about what's going on.

Comments

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

There's a small links round-up here (http://blue-cat.livejournal.com/1224826.html) - in particular the link to a blog with comments from Amazon workers is somewhat interesting.

[imagines.livejournal.com]

Awesome, more information! I got home and stumbled across this...uh, somehow. I don't remember how I got the link to Probst's LJ. Have been getting more and more furious, and have emailed them saying why I am furious and also that I won't be buying anything from them until they've fixed this.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I told them the same thing, and it sounds like a bunch of others have too. Hopefully they'll realize what an insanely stupid move this was and put everything back the way it was. :/

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

You've probably learned by now that this was almost certainly the result of an outside attack, rather than an actual decision on Amazon's part (other than the foolish decision to let users + automation determine what should be labelled as "adult").

[ertchin.livejournal.com]

I've seen a lot of disagreement over whether it was an outside attack or not. Is there something out there that definitely says it was an attack?

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

I don't know of anything definitive, and probably shouldn't have said "almost certainly". It's mostly a "Don't invoke malice when stupidity will suffice" argument. And outside forces have a clear incentive to sabotage Amazon's rankings, whereas I'm hard-pressed to come up with a good reason for Amazon to sabotage themselves in such a manner.

[ertchin.livejournal.com]

And I should be clear that I can also well believe it was just a very poorly-written (and -thought-out) algorithm, with no malice intended.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

All I've heard from Amazon is "oops, it was an accident." No explanation, no apology. Based on the events and their reaction thereto, I feel perfectly comfortable blaming the company.