rogin | Amazon fuckwittery

Amazon fuckwittery

I think by now everyone on my flist has heard about the big time amazon fail. So I'm just adding my voice to the many here.

Amazon started to exclude adult material from their sales ranking. Only that they define adult by gay/lesbian since mainstream het porn like that is still in the ranking but self help books and inexplicit gay romances are pulled from the ranking.
This is what you get if you search for homosexuality at amazon.com at the moment.

More information is here and here

Here's a petition
and this way to the google bombing amazon rank
but I think the most effective way to get them to react to the uproar is to pull your orders and write them as a customer.

ETA: Looks like the fixing is in process, some of the books I had searched for earlier today too have gotten their ranks back (Like "The Filly", by Mark Probst who was one of the first people who brought this up).
Hopefully a proper explanation and/or apology is coming too.

ETA:

tehdely 's troll theory sounds not totally unplausible (especially since the regular porn was left untouched). Looks like several claimed responibility for the maybe hack in response of the theory. The internet is a messy place sometimes.

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At long last, someone actually explaining what's going on. Have seen two posts now mentioning Amazon Fail, and was left assuming Amazon had gone bust or something.

Is this just Amazon in the US or everywhere?

Looks like it's everywhere, though I personally checked only amazon.de and not amazon.co.uk.

On amazon.de only the english book section is affected, they did not go through the trouble of censoring the german rankings as well. I presume that they drew the sales rankings there from US page.

Also it's pretty inconsitent so far, I checked on Moab is my washpot by Stephen Fry and in this edition the rank is gone:
http://www.amazon.com/Moab-My-Washpot-Stephen-Fry/dp/1569472025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239618387&sr=1-1

while the audio book still has it's rank

http://www.amazon.com/Moab-Washpot-Unabridged-Stephen-Fry/dp/1856862682/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239618387&sr=1-3

It looks pretty much as if they went by some rec lists for gay literature and also a lot of erotica written by women are gone, but at least those actually contained porn, contrary to "Heather has two mommies"

ETA: I have to use a less cheerful default icon, I constantly have to edit my posts now...

I don't even understand what Amazon rankings are. However, I know I don't want to carry on buying from them if they're being discriminatory.

Basically it's a ranking of all articles based on how many copies they sold. An internal bestseller list.
It also influences the order in which search results are displayed, so titles with no rank would only be shown on the bottom of results, making the books much harder to find and virtually invisible if you're only searching by genres or general terms.

Btw I just read that John Barrowman's autobiography made the list...

I wont buy anything there anymore either under this circumstances but I seriously hope that they fix this in a satisfactory manner because I can't really fathom how to go without here in comic wasteland.

It would certainly be a pain not to be able to use them. How about Play.com? Do they sell comics?

I think they do, but they also charge pretty high shipping costs to get the stuff over here.

But if this doesn't resolve it's one of the places where I will look.

Sickos..o.o..first I was confused what was so horrible about the site and then I read the titles. A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality
xDD That is so ridiculous and retarded it's kinda stunning..

Damn, I love ordering on amazon, now I gotta find some other page until they come to their senses..*shakeshead*

Ich hab dir grad ne email geschrieben =)

I love ordering there too. I have no idea, how I'll manage to get my english books and comics at a decent price fix without amazon but under these circumstances I'll have to find away. This simply has to turn into a financial desaster for them, if amazon is really responsible.

Hab mailchen gelesen *hearts* kriegst bald Antwort (hoffentlich morgen o so)

WTF? Those idiots... singed the petition. And of course no more orders from Amazon. Thanks for posting and explaining what happened hun.
What are the thinking? *shakes head*

*kisses you* xxx

I seriously don't get it. They deranked bestseller authors like Stephen Fry or the Brokeback mountain book. This can't have been good for their sales in the first place...

Hopefully they'll come their senses

*hugs*

Hi, I just wanted to let you know, when I googled Amazon Fuckwittery, your entry was the first thing that came up, and the only thing in reference to this 'fail' that is happening. Good for you! BOO AMAZON!

O.o! Guess it's because I didn't use the universally agreed upon title of amazon.fail.

I really hope they'll fix this and give a reasonable explanation and/or apology.

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