Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Amazon Fail

I hate censorship! I don't think a certain group of people have the right to tell other people what books to read, what music to listen to or what television shows or movies to watch. Now, censorship has come to Amazon.Com - oh, the shame!! Amazon has started deleting books from the Amazon Rank database, which is going to make it much harder to find certain books on an Amazon search.

Amazon seems to be stripping the sales figures and accompanying rankings from GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) books, erotica, and romance novels, particularly those with what they term “adult content.”

I learned of this problem while reading Neil Gaiman's blog (a daily read for me). Here is his link plus two more:

Neil Gaiman

Making Light

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Although I love buying books on Amazon BECAUSE of their huge selection, if this problem isn't corrected soon, I will have to look elsewhere for my books.

Until Amazon corrects this problem, I will no longer be using the Amazon Assoicate Links for the books and movies I review.

2 comments:

Gin said...

According to the New York Times, this was much ado about nothing (http://tinyurl.com/cd49wf). We'll likely never know whether the Amazon statement is the entire truth, but the situation is now being addressed, as it well should be.

Literary Feline said...

I've been following this story since first hearing about it on Twitter. I'm sure you are aware of Amazon's reply and that they are trying to resolve the issue. It's a shame it happened in the first place. I am not sure how I feel about their explanation, to be honest. There are just too many question marks still, you know?