djm4_lj | A couple of observations on AmazonGate

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.