A couple of observations on AmazonGate

[djm4_lj]

As several people on my friends list have pointed out, amazon.com has been de-ranking 'adult' books, which includes several gay and lesbian titles. (See also this blog post.)

I thought for a while that this was only the amazon.com site, not the .co.uk one, because a lot of the books mentioned in the post did have ranks on the .co.uk one. But Heather Has Two Mommies is unranked on the UK site (look under 'Poroduct Details' below 'Average Customer Review' where it would normally be). Go figure.

On the .com site Oranges are not the Only Fruit is unranked (and that in itself is enough to make me want to burn my Amazon Prime subscription). But Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit [BARGAIN PRICE] (Paperback) does have a sales rank. Because of the way Amazon appear to have organised their searches, This means that if you search for the book from the 'Books' section, the full price one comes up, but if you search from the home page, the bargain one comes up. (I admit there may be something else going on here; Amazon searches can be eclectic at the best of times.)

Lest we forget, Amazon have some pretty nasty working practices too.

Comments

[calum]

This kinda makes sense to me:

http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html

The timing is suspicious

[uberredfraggle.livejournal.com]

Interesting link. Cheers.

[djm4]

Well, Amazon's been de-listing books of this nature since February, so it didn't just happen over a weekend. The shit-storm about it may be well-timed trolling, but I don't find that poster's arguments at all convincing in themselves. Not least because they're archly evasive about whether or not Bantown exists, is a trolling organisation, and whether they're part of it. They seem to regard Bantown as some kind of James Bond supervillain organisation, which screams 'net kook with delusions of grandeur' to me.

[calum]

He quite specifically says Bantown doesnt exist. Its a tactic, not an organisation.

If Amazon was to step this up.. why would they do it on a holiday weekend?

It makes perfect sense that Amazon are delisting books that get complaints, or some other attribute tagged on them.. This would have been going on for some time, and then someone has figured it out, and taken advantage.

If we knew how they were supposed to have been tagged, we could test it, by doing the same to some Christian book, and seeing if it gets removed.

[djm4]

Yes, I know they claim Bantown doesn't exist. They also say 'The author is a former non-member of a non-IRC channel called Bantown which no longer exists, never existed, and will never exist again,' so I'm taking any of their statements about Bantown with a pinch of salt. That said, purplerabbits's link below lends credence to their claim, so I may well have been hasty in dismissing them.

[kiya]

Personally, I'm just shakingly outraged by the delisting of the suicide prevention manual for queer teenagers.

[sunspiral.livejournal.com]

Various writer friends of mine have been directly harmed by what Amazon is now trying to claim was a "glitch". I've just closed my Amazon account and will deal with more responsible booksellers like Powell's.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

This may or may not be true

http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html?nc=19

[djm4]

*snort!*

If true, that has the twisted genius of xkcd's Black Hat Guy.

[djm4]

Not an absolute deal-breaker, but the code as posted doesn't work.