Amazon Accused of Removing Gay Books from Rankings

[litlady]

Source: Mashable

Mark R. Probst, a gay romance author whose book was included in the action, writes in his LiveJournal blog:

On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: “Transgressions” by Erastes and “False Colors” by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book “The Filly.” There was buzz, What’s going on? Does Amazon have some sort of campaign to suppress the visibility of gay books?

Probst received the following reply after contacting Amazon through his Amazon Advantage account:

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.



Read more: http://mashable.com/2009/04/12/amazon-accused-of-removing-gay-books-from-rankings/

---

Though this was discovered in late February apparently, Twitter is going nuts right now as are tech blogs etc. There is already a petition. Even books such as suicide prevention guides and pictorial histories of Harvey Milk have been de-ranked. However, other obvious "adult" related content has not been. This has apparently spread to other countries including Canada, Denmark, the UK, and Japan. This site has a link to most of the books de-ranked: http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html

[Ian David]

1. See related thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5442852&mesg_id=5442852

[MadMaddie]

2. Well then Amazon won't be getting my business then.

WTF is wrong with these businesses?

[DKRC]

3. Here's their contact info

Amazon.com, Inc.
P.O. Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
1-800-201-7575 (Customer Service)


I haven't tried the number to verify it's accurate. Found it on a 800 number directory.

[FreeState]

4. K&R

Now Amazon is claiming its a glitch - never mind that GLBT books have been disappearing for months now. Sex toys in the ranking is fine - gay books with not.

Craig Seymour began blogging about this in February, but it is just now getting widespread notice. http://craigspoplife.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-amazon-homophobic.html

[Downtown Hound]

5. Well, I'll be calling them tomorrow and telling them they won't be getting

any more of my business.

[Prophet 451]

6. Damn

I thought it was a glitch at first, like their database somehow lost the rankings from a certain category (I work in IT, this happens more often than you'd think). Then they said they'd removed "adult" content and if we were talking about LGBT erotica, that would be fair enough. But now it seems they're just being dicks.

[mainer]

9. Everyone lost their rankings for about half a day

I noticed that while browsing through Amazon a few days ago. None of the titles, in any genre, seemed to have their usual rankings.

[wilsonbooks]

7. A way to fight back using Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/tagging/items-tagged-with/ref=tag_dpp_yt_isrc_s__sr?tag=%23amazonfail&search=1&goBtn.x=0&goBtn.y=0

[matt819]

8. My e-mail to Amazon and auto(?) response

My e-mail: I am writing to express my opposition to your apparently anti-gay policy of deranking selected "adult content" books, including award-winning books and other critically acclaimed books. This sort of censorship is objectionable, and I would urge Amazon to reconsider this policy.

In so many other instances Amazon has been a leader. Product selection is impressive, customer service probably in the top 3 of anyone's list. But this action is deplorable.

Amazon response: Hello,

Thanks for contacting us. We recently discovered a glitch in our systems and it's being fixed.

Thanks again for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:

If not, click here:


Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

Sethurajkumar M.
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

[cagesoulman]

10. "Adult" books? I just found "American Psycho" without any problem

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_12?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=american+pyscho&sprefix=American+Pys

Complete with rankings. Talk about "adult" reading.