Comments | darkravenette: Epic fail, Amazon

darkravenette

Epic fail, Amazon

Apr 13, 2009 09:58

I'm posting this here and leaving it unlocked. Google bomb, away!

Amazon Rank | What this is all about

I love their "it's just a glitch" excuse. Despite the fact that they've been stripping GLBT titles of their ranks since Feb, and leaving other "adult" titles alone.

Leave a comment

Back to all threads

trwhiplash April 13 2009, 15:57:08 UTC

I don't have a link for it, but I was linked to an LJ post about this while discussing it with a friend yesterday that put forth a pretty interesting theory.

It basically said that, because content is flagged as appropriate/inappropriate based on some kind of user vote system, what might be happening is that some conservative group is going around flagging all of these books as inappropriate, and because it's an automated system it's allowing it.

Amazon's owner is a pretty liberal dude and it's centered in a pretty liberal town, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that they'd be doing this.

darkravenette April 13 2009, 16:38:11 UTC

I've seen that post too, and I really, REALLY want to hope that it's someone exploiting the system. That I'd actually be less upset about.

But it's not uniform. As shown on the site, one of the authors whose ranking was killed received a response from Amazon saying "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude 'adult' material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature." Meanwhile, Ron Jeremy's biography kept its rank and remained in search results.

martenb April 14 2009, 00:45:59 UTC

I've gotten reliable scuttle that the glitch thing is legit. http://www.lilithsaintcrow.com/journal/2009/04/idosyncratic-code-amazonfail/

Short version: French Amazon team member confuses the English word "Adult" (which gets blocked" and the word "Sexuality." Pushes it to the whole site, SNAFU. Corroborated from another Amazon insider who couldn't confirm details but verified the glitch thing.

Having seen the inside of a(n admittedly smaller) major online retailer I can absolutely buy that a weird, goofy bit of internal-use-only software could lead to trouble like this.

If this is the case, it most likely means the stuff from Feb was either unrelated or a much smaller scale mixup.

martenb April 14 2009, 00:46:40 UTC

This would also explain the CS response. I'd bet anything the CS agent just sees a little tag that says "Material Flagged Adult" or some damn thing and pops off a script.

martenb April 14 2009, 00:52:15 UTC

Seattle PI has a new statement from Amazon that also corroborates this:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166329.asp?from=blog_last3

Drew Herdener's comments unfiltered:

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.Considering that ( ... )

Back to all threads