Amazon Fail: Yet Another Update

[filkertom]

atlantapendrag got an interesting form letter

Hello,

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

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

That would be something very like... at least a small effort at taking responsibility for the problem. Good on Amazon.

Comments

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Now to see how all of this shakes out and who might be getting my (very meager) dollars going forward.

[sstaver.livejournal.com]

I knew people were making a much larger pissy-fit out of it than it really was.

[hiddenriver.livejournal.com]

Amazon has only itself to blame. When people started complaining months ago, they were informed that it was a deliberate policy decision. Amazon only chose to do something about it when the "pissy-fit" got large enough to potentially make a dent in their sales, then they blamed it on a "glitch".

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I got the same email.

[ororo.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the update. It's a start.

[hiddenriver.livejournal.com]

I'm not buying it. Were they lying over the past several months when they told the authors who complained that it was a policy change and that they were deliberately removing "offensive material", or are they lying now? Either way, they lied.

[gelfling-flys.livejournal.com]

This is an important point. This problem has been going on for months.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Okay, Tom. We've had tea-bagging, NOM, 2M4M, Amazon anti-gay glitch, and lots of other things.

Isn't this enough for a song? Or are you wait for even _more_?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I have to believe the issue is more complex than stated. Someone else commented that books on feminism were also affected. So it's possible the GLTB books were just more visible and more people were willing to bring it to their attention. Being an "adult" book could be the first response because they didn't have anything better to say.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Ach. I don't like amazon.com very much, but whatever they put in writing will be used against them by someone. If they formally apologize to gays and feminists, they'll have the wingnut press all over them. If they don't, well, they'll have us, or most of us. I wonder what they will do.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

They could simply apologize to "all the authors and publishers whose books were affected". That would be both appropriate and neutrally-phrased.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

You're making too much sense--there's a number of people I know who probably won't be satisfied with less than a ringing defense of gay rights, which I don't think they're going to get.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica.

Well, we know the right wing doesn't actually want anyone to find out about health, mind and body, or reproductive and sexual medicine, much less erotica. So...yeah.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

I'm getting the impression of problems being escalated from the front line support drone-units and their mandatory flowcharts to people who are actually allowed to show some initiative in reaction here.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

The person who wrote that is a fairly senior PR guy. Still no press release, though.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm comparing that and the "glitch" responses to the initial "this book is adult content etc" responses, the last of which I'm assuming are from the support staff that would likely be forbidden to say anything other than what their flowcharts instructed them to say. I'm pretty much seeing progressive sanity, or at least people going off autopilot.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

.... which is a direct quote from the press release from earlier today, with the *sole* exception of formatting and the greeting and final graf.

:/

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

There has been no official press release as of this moment--I just checked their website. This is what has been given to the press by one of their PR people.

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

I haven't posted anything about this incident anywhere. That's because I still have a problem believing it happened.

I deal with executive stupidity in many places. I live with it, as much as you do. But for this to happen at a nationally known company - involved with literature, at that - is absolutely mind-boggling.

Mind you, if it was an outfit that deliberately pushes Christian or right-wing literature - as does Books-A-Million - I'd expect it to happen. The gays and lesbians would protest and complain abou them and we'd have the expected stand-off. But Amazon was supposed to be different.

As the biggest - for some the only - place to buy books, they must have known they couldn't overtly do prejudicial things. Hell, even Barnes & Noble have sections for gay and lesbian books, clearly marked and open to the public. This would have to be done as a decision by Amazon's CEO and board of directors, and it wouldn't be found in the minutes of the organization; this is something they'd decide to do when the secretaries were given a break and just the board members were talking together in a closed room.

Amazon's board has been outed, so to speak, and I'm glad. But what discombobulates me is that they thought they could do it, undiscovered, in the first place.