Amazon.com ... god I hate them. Here's an idea.

[Ian David]

The following is an email I sent to Skinner:



Skinner, in light of the latest Amazon.com insult to humanity http://tinyurl.com/ch4jtk

I propose the following:

1) Add to the DemocraticUnderground Terms of Service that we do not link to Amazon.com

2) Block Amazon from advertising here through the Google ads

And HERE is the one that is sure to get you pilloried on NewsMax if you can (and if you so choose) to do it...

3) Write a script that automatically replaces all past and future links from DU to Amazon.com with links to Powells.com instead.

Since both Powells and Amazon base their links on the ISDN numbers according to a set formula, I imagine it would be easier than when you had the name-change amnesty. But I could be wrong.

But I think it's a good idea.

How about you?


See also:

Amazon de-ranks so-called adult books, including National Book Award winner
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/

These Books Too Gay for Amazon
By Ryan Tate, 5:18 PM on Sun Apr 12 2009, 2,402 views
http://gawker.com/5209136/many-gay-books-banned-from-amazon-rankings


And:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23amazonfail

[BlooInBloo]

1. Care to share what your issue is/was?

[OKNancy]

3. It's in the link

they don't promote "adult" content on the best seller list.
I don't plan to alter my shopping habits because of it.

[ima_sinnic]

7. but they are defining "adult" content as "gay" content, whether sexual or not

thus gay-themed books don't show up on searches.

[OKNancy]

11. I did a search

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_11?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=harvey+milk+biography&sprefix=Harvey+Milk

[yardwork]

30. It's the sales figures that are being censored. Eventually that will affect the searches.

This thread explains the problem clearly:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=126043&mesg_id=126043

Apparently Amazon decided that any title with the descriptor "gay" or "lesbian" counts as "adult" and they stripped the sales ranks from those titles and took them out of bestseller searches and promotions. Classics like The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe Hall got swept up in this, as well as all their non-fiction titles on gay issues.

[dem629]

9. Yeah, I won't stop using them either. I like doing business w/Amazon.

[dem629]

2. tinyurl, huh? Must be masking the site and hoping for traffic. Sorry.

[Ian David]

5. No.. here's the original link. Geesh.

http://www.gaydizo.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1472&postcount=3

[BlooInBloo]

6. Can you really not understand why people are hestitant? This is the web here, not twitter.

[dem629]

12. I was kind of kidding. There was a blowout here about that before.

[Ian David]

14. Do I look like the kind of person who would rick-roll you? n/t

[BlooInBloo]

23. Yes.

This has been another episode of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.

:P

[Ian David]

25. You're right. But not today.

:)

[kiva]

4. Google bomb...my post from another thread:

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog... / has defined Amazon Rank as:

amazon rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked

1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.

Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com’s website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include “Bastard Out of Carolina,” “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,” several romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.

Example of usage: “I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterly’s Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene.”

Alternate usage: “My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay.”

[NYC_SKP]

8. LA Times and "Gawker" suggest they ban many books with gay content.

Part of the same "adult" thinning of selections, maybe, or maybe a bit of homophobia tossed into the mix.

http://gawker.com/5209136/many-gay-books-banned-from-amazon-rankings

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html

[Ian David]

10. I see plenty of adult-themed non-gay books still in the Amazon ranking. n/t

[Mike 03]

13. Okay... But why do we hate Amazon?

I've never had an issue with them.

[Ian David]

15. Let me see if I can google some stuff before dinner is ready...

This is all I could get you before dinner.

But IIRC, Amazon.com also donated to some reich-wing causes that are almost literally burning books in addition to the usual band of far-reich loathsome Repukes.




Amazon.com Misled Investors During the Internet Boom
March 12, 2005 - Online retailer Amazon.com agreed to pay $27.5 million to settle a securities lawsuit that claimed it misled investors during the Internet boom. That lawsuit charged that Amazon continued to tout the network even as it was losing millions of dollars. It also failed to disclose that a large portion of the revenue recognized under the agreements came in the form of stock, not cash. In August 2000, Amazon began clarifying which revenue it received in cash or stock from the partnerships and the losses related to them.

Amazon Customers Stripped of Right to Civil Justice System through use of Binding Mandatory Arbtration
Amazon's webpages contain a clause requiring disputes to be settled by (private) binding arbitration. Mandatory binding arbitration prevents customers from suing the company if they have a dispute. A broad coalition of consumer groups oppose the use of Binding Mandatory Arbitrtation agreements. (See http://www.givemebackmyrights.com /) Private mediation is often more costly for the consumer, and used by companies to hide unfavorable proceedings from public courtrooms.


A union of their own
InfoWorld 3/12/01 .. .Amazon.com has also kept relatively quiet about internal reactions to the unionization activity and to the customer service center closing. The e-tailer has tried to keep workers from talking about the events. Earlier this year, terminated workers were effectively put under a gag order by Amazon.com -- departing workers who said anything negative in public about the company would have to settle for a smaller severance package. But in early February Amazon.com backed off from this position. "I can now talk freely to the press without jeopardizing my severance," Wandler says.

US: Amazon.com Fights Union Activity
by Steven Greenhouse, New York Times November 29th, 2000 Amazon.com has come out swinging in its fight to stop a new unionization drive, telling employees that unions are a greedy, for-profit business and advising managers on ways to detect when a group of workers is trying to back a union. A section on Amazon's internal Web site gives supervisors anti-union material to pass on to employees, saying that unions mean strife and possible strikes and that while unions are certain to charge expensive dues, they cannot guarantee improved wages or benefits. The Web site advises managers on warning signs that a union is trying to organize. Among the signs that Amazon notes are "hushed conversations when you approach which have not occurred before," and "small group huddles breaking up in silence on the approach of the supervisor."

Amazon.com and its customer service employees are entering the jungle of labor tension.
Dec. 11, 2000 An attempt Friday by some of the Seattle-based company's customer service workers to organize their fellow employees has led to conflicting accounts about whether the company violated labor laws. A lawyer for the employees charged in a letter to Amazon on Friday that it illegally quashed an attempt to hand out union literature. But the company says that organizers left of their own accord.

Amazon Loses Some Allure
"Here's a way to turn a happy customer into an unhappy customer in a hurry: sign them up for a magazine subscription they don't want, and then make them opt out to keep from automatically getting billed for it. One reader was upset to discover recently that's what Amazon was doing to him."

http://www.buyblue.org/node/66/view/summary






US withdraws subpoena seeking identity of 24,000 Amazon customers
Topic started by Robbien on Nov-27-07 03:49 PM (129 replies)
Last modified by boricua79 on Nov-28-07 11:38 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3080065

[Catch22Dem]

16. Sorry, but I'm not on board

I can't advocate not allowing DUers to link to Amazon or ANY other site they wish. If we can link to FR, we ought to be able to link to just about anything!

[BlooInBloo]

17. I love how word spread so fast. Americablog has it up. The General just tweeted it. lol!

[Ian David]

18. Oh, once Jesus' General sitcks his dick in it, it's done, man.

My two worst nightmares are pissing-off Jesus' General or PageOneQ.

I'd rather be audited by the IRS.

Seriously.

[BlooInBloo]

22. hahaha! The Rude One is my fear, but yah.

[Matariki]

19. That link you provided was blocked by my Virus Protection software as spyware

what are you up to?

[Ian David]

20. Seriously? Which link? n/t

[Matariki]

28. This one: tinyurl.com/ch4jtk

zone alarm gave a spyware alart and gives me a page load error.

[Ian David]

29. Try this...

http://www.gaydizo.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1472&postcount=3

[Democrats_win]

21. Looks like they're doing it to even "G" rated GLBT books.

For instance, Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez. I know this book is "G" (that is, for general audiences.) I investigated to see if this particular book was ranked on Amazon and it's not ranked. It's also listed as one of the unranked books on this link which was posted in another DU post:

http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html

Certainly there may be books on this list that belong there, but right now it looks like they are doing it with a broad brush.

This is the first I've heard of this, so we'll wait and see. But it looks like they are doing wrong by the GLBT community. If we find that they are indeed doing wrong, hopefully people will take a stand against this company. Already Americans have seen that if we don't take a stand, we get ripped off (see Wall Street, 2008, or Bush's Iraq war.)

Remember, this poem:

"When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat....

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me."

[Ian David]

24. Looks like King and King is still available..

http://www.amazon.com/King-Linda-Haan/dp/1582460612/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239588486&sr=1-1

But I would buy it here: http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=1582460612

[OKNancy]

26. afterellen link

completely safe link for anyone interested:
http://www.afterellen.com/blog/christiekeith/amazon-com-de-gays-search

The update said:
EDITOR'S UPDATE: Here's the just response Christie Keith received from Amazon: "Thanks for your message. There was a glitch with our sales rank feature that is currently being fixed." That's it.

[Ian David]

27. Update: Amazon.com now says a (very selective) glitch responsible for gay-panic de-listing

Amazon.com now says a (very selective) glitch responsible for gay-panic de-listing
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=126066&mesg_id=126066

[yardwork]

31. The "glitch" being that somebody decided that any title with the word "gay" in it must be porn.

Amazon has some explaining to do.

[Matariki]

32. When I worked there, they were transitioning to an automated screening program

This was used on customer reviews. It was a pretty screwy program. For instance, some words I recall being screened, as possible insults to the author were 'pig' and 'cow' - obviously problematic on farming books. The word 'Jew' was screened, iirc, a problem with WWII and Holocaust history books. Probably a number of words that were deemed potentially 'pornographic' were also screened.

Being in Seattle, the atmosphere at Amazon was very liberal. I'd be inclined to actually believe that it was a glitch due to automation, rather than a human decision. But who knows?

[tbyg52]

33. According to a post upthread, the corporate actions are not liberal.

I'm waiting for more info on their corporate actions and the origins of the current stupid action before abandoning them, but it doesn't look good.

[GOPisEvil]

34. It was the work of a hacker, apparently.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163024/hacker_claims_credit_for_amazons_gaythemed_book_glitch.html

If this is PROVEN to be the work of a hacker, I think the OP owes Amazon an apology.

[anigbrowl]

35. And a known one, at that.

I move in these social circles a bit. This story is likely to be true.