Wow, it looks like Amazon.com really stepped in it today - and made an even bigger mess when it tried to scrape it off the bottom of its shoes. I'm not one who generally believes in conspiracy theories or cover-ups, but something does seem to smell about the massive de-ranking Amazon did of "adult books," many, if not most, of which fall under the "gay and lesbian" banner. Amazon is claiming this was all part of some kind of super systems glitch and that rankings for the pulled books are being restored as we speak. Some are buying the excuse - most, though, don't seem ready to let Amazon off the hook that easily.The best recap of the situation I've seen anywhere comes from Jezebel.com. Check this out; it is fascinating regardless of how this all happened, and I have to wonder how this blunder will affect Amazon book sales - at least in the short term.
This will make a great MBA case study some day.
I don't know what to make of this. A site the size of Amazon... well -- it AMAZONIAN!It could be that somehow some things get filtered out for the sake of real blatant pornography getting in or something, and not enough personnel to really do an extensive search of what should be let in, like the Proulx book and so many others?
ReplyDeleteNo matter what the real problem is, yeah... for amazon's sake, they better get on to fixing it!
I don't know what really happened, Cip, but I do find it hard to believe they actually could have been this unlucky - they had to be up to something and it either totally failed or flopped big time.
ReplyDelete