Amazonfail, and getting out the virtual pitchforks.
For the casual internet user who may have missed it, Amazon has decided to derank book/products with what they deem to be "adult themes". What they actually mean by "adult themes" is homosexuality, bisexuality, lesbianism and transgenderism. The authors and books affected by this include Annie Proulx Brokeback Mountain, "Heather Has Two Mommies", and the clearly pornographic "The Lesbian Parenting Book". There are a lot of blogs posting lists and initial reactions,(seriously, I've been tagging stuff for metfan for the last three hours) and some fairly frightening observations about the length to which Amazon.fail is going to invisible queer content:
This sounds like a big old bowl of BS, does it not? Especially when you consider the fact that Amazon has vibrators, clitoral stimulators and anal plugs available in their search system with sales ranks attached. One wonders why these items are allowed to remain in the system with sales ranks while books including gay and lesbian content, themes, and even, as a commenter points out, autobiographies of gay and lesbian authors such as Stephen Fry, are deemed too "adult" for such things.<
The amazon rank system, or deranking causes actual financial harm to the authors of these books, because it removes them from searches. (incidentally, the google bomb is working. Go us!)
DeRanking is an attack on the visibility and acceptance of GLBT people in the community.
DeRanking is about making queer invisible.
DeRanking queer content means that when you enter the search term "homosexuality" on Amazon.fail, the first ranked result is "A Parent's guide to preventing homosexuality".
This is unfolding so quickly, it's hard to follow - but while I was linking for metafandom
djin7 was feeding me all kinds of great links that I want to share - because they are people taking action, people letting Amazon.Fail know exactly what we think of this, because it's happeing right now.
There's discussions on the amazon boards, and people are linking to the close your amazon account page. BookSquare has An open letter to Amazon up, and of course there is a petition.
BUY BOOKS ELSEWHERE
A lot of people are coming up with alternatives to Amazon.fail.
aliciamasters points out:
Borders has achieved yet another 100% score from HRC (the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.) They offer same-sex benefits to all employees who have insurance in all areas: medical, optical, dental and life insurance. They have several action committees in the home office, including an GLBT group, a GLBT book club, and diversity training.
rydra_wong (I think, again this is happening pretty quickly so if I miscredit, or get it wrong, please let me know) *someone* created a twitter hashtag #amazonfail. It's currently getting a new message about every 4 seconds, and some of those comments have great links on where the discussion is happening:
EKSwitaj: Ulysses has retained its sales rank; I can only assume this is because no one at Amazon has read it. #amazonfail
RowanMcBride: RT @Erastes apparently Amazon is now demanding emails instead of phone calls. RING LIKE THE WIND BULLSEYE! #amazonfail
stewardess has some interesting speculation on how this likely happened:
Some group (Parents For Keeping Children Off The Internet So They Never Learn Anything Other Than What We Tell Them) complained. Then a poor sod in IT got tasked by an executive with making the bad books go away, and was pressured (as IT always is) to pick the cheapest and quickest fix: singling out books based on interestskeywords, then stripping sales rank as a crappy but effective method of killfiling said books at Amazon.
My hunch is that Kindle being left out was not exactly deliberate. As the sexy, new (and hopefully wildly profitable) technology, Kindle is a separate division with its own execs at the reins, and possibly the clout to ignore half-assed directives. Kindle products are also favored in searches; screwing with the Kindle side might have made a whole lot of unrelated stuff break. Kindle honchos may have been able to successfully argue, "We can't do the same stupid keyword and sales rank crap you did; we are delicate and special!" Edit: Paper books have ISBNs, Kindle books have ASNs; Amazon's censorship (at least this round) appears to have been of ISBN products only.
AMAZON.FAIL NOW CLAIMING A GLITCH RESPONSIBLE.
From Publisher's Weekly:
A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove adult titles from its sales ranking. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.Why am I picturing a guy named Arthur Glitch sitting in Amazon HQ?
Seriously though, that in an incredibly slippery response. There's no new adult policy, but amazon's stated policy when they responded to an authors is:
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.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
So not new policy, but new enforcement. VERY Slippery, Ashlyn. Plus if I'm right, you're treating customers in bad faith. So it's selective new enforcement of old policy - or does Amazon.fail actually expect people to believe that a random series of events caused the deranking of queer friendly books?
NEW UPDATES HERE
People have been calling Amazon, flooding their customer service line. A mazon asked that we send an email instead. Oh LOL no. Making the protest quiet and easy to handle defeats the purpose. In case you're having trouble finding the numbers (you have to sign in before they let you see an actual phone number, and that's hard if you've cancelled your account) here ya go, courtesy of cliche ideas:
US Customer Service
Phone toll-free in the US and Canada: (800) 201-7575 or (866) 216-1072
Phone from outside the US and Canada: (206) 346-2992 or (206)-266-2992
Another direct line: (206) 266-2335
E-mail: orders@amazon.com (I think this will still work, but no guarantees)
E-mail address and the fax numbers seem to go on- and off-line with some regularity. Readers have also had luck with the following addresses:
resolution@amazon.com
charge-inquiries@amazon.com
jeff@amazon.com
(This last e-mail address sends back an note from Amazon that using it won't help you. There may be nobody reading the e-mail that comes to this address.)
Amazon's rebate center: 1-866-348-2492
Amazon Corporate Accounts:1-866-486-2360
Snail mail to customer service
Amazon.com, Inc.
Customer Service
PO Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
Service for Amazon Sellers
877-251-0696
They also have special e-mail accounts for spoofing and abuse:
stop-spoofing@amazon.com
reports@amazon.com
(This information was provided by a reader! Thanks!)
Canadian Customer Service
Phone 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific: (877)-586-3230
Corporate Offices, Seattle
(206) 622-2335
The fax number has changed. 206-266-1832 is no longer a fax number.
New! Fax for Amazon's legal Department: 206-266-7010
UK Customer Service
Phone: +44.208.636.9200
More UK numbers, from a reader:
Freephone (only from within the UK): 0800 279 6620
Phone (outside the UK): +44 20 8636 9451
Fax (free from within the UK): 0800 279 6630
Fax (outside the UK): +44 20 8636 9401
An Aussie who contacted me verified the number above but for Aussies you need to dial it this way: 0011 1 206 266-2992.
UK Snail Mail:
Amazon.co.uk Ltd
Patriot Court
1-9 The Grove
Slough
SL1 1QP
Amazon.com Headquarters
Address: 1200 12th Ave., Ste. 1200
Seattle, WA 98144
Phone: (206) 266-1000
Fax: (206) 622-2405
Info e-mail: in@amazon.com is no longer a working e-mail address.
(Amazon's CEO is Jeff Bezos, if you want a name to put on an e-mail or fax to this office.)
Incidentally, the cool kids on twitter have unmasked Amazon's technical officer's blog and twitter so that we can let him know what we think of this new program.
I'm about to lose internet access for the afternoon (I think. They're doing some work on the guesthouse and my modem is still plugged in over there) so I'm posting this now and hopefully can update when my connection is more stable.
Edit: I have internet on and off. Exciting!
This sounds like a big old bowl of BS, does it not? Especially when you consider the fact that Amazon has vibrators, clitoral stimulators and anal plugs available in their search system with sales ranks attached. One wonders why these items are allowed to remain in the system with sales ranks while books including gay and lesbian content, themes, and even, as a commenter points out, autobiographies of gay and lesbian authors such as Stephen Fry, are deemed too "adult" for such things.<
The amazon rank system, or deranking causes actual financial harm to the authors of these books, because it removes them from searches. (incidentally, the google bomb is working. Go us!)
DeRanking is an attack on the visibility and acceptance of GLBT people in the community.
DeRanking is about making queer invisible.
DeRanking queer content means that when you enter the search term "homosexuality" on Amazon.fail, the first ranked result is "A Parent's guide to preventing homosexuality".
This is unfolding so quickly, it's hard to follow - but while I was linking for metafandom
djin7 was feeding me all kinds of great links that I want to share - because they are people taking action, people letting Amazon.Fail know exactly what we think of this, because it's happeing right now.
There's discussions on the amazon boards, and people are linking to the close your amazon account page. BookSquare has An open letter to Amazon up, and of course there is a petition.
BUY BOOKS ELSEWHERE
A lot of people are coming up with alternatives to Amazon.fail.
aliciamasters points out:
Borders has achieved yet another 100% score from HRC (the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.) They offer same-sex benefits to all employees who have insurance in all areas: medical, optical, dental and life insurance. They have several action committees in the home office, including an GLBT group, a GLBT book club, and diversity training.
rydra_wong (I think, again this is happening pretty quickly so if I miscredit, or get it wrong, please let me know) *someone* created a twitter hashtag #amazonfail. It's currently getting a new message about every 4 seconds, and some of those comments have great links on where the discussion is happening:
EKSwitaj: Ulysses has retained its sales rank; I can only assume this is because no one at Amazon has read it. #amazonfail
RowanMcBride: RT @Erastes apparently Amazon is now demanding emails instead of phone calls. RING LIKE THE WIND BULLSEYE! #amazonfail
stewardess has some interesting speculation on how this likely happened:
Some group (Parents For Keeping Children Off The Internet So They Never Learn Anything Other Than What We Tell Them) complained. Then a poor sod in IT got tasked by an executive with making the bad books go away, and was pressured (as IT always is) to pick the cheapest and quickest fix: singling out books based on interestskeywords, then stripping sales rank as a crappy but effective method of killfiling said books at Amazon.
My hunch is that Kindle being left out was not exactly deliberate. As the sexy, new (and hopefully wildly profitable) technology, Kindle is a separate division with its own execs at the reins, and possibly the clout to ignore half-assed directives. Kindle products are also favored in searches; screwing with the Kindle side might have made a whole lot of unrelated stuff break. Kindle honchos may have been able to successfully argue, "We can't do the same stupid keyword and sales rank crap you did; we are delicate and special!" Edit: Paper books have ISBNs, Kindle books have ASNs; Amazon's censorship (at least this round) appears to have been of ISBN products only.
AMAZON.FAIL NOW CLAIMING A GLITCH RESPONSIBLE.
From Publisher's Weekly:
A groundswell of outrage, concern and confusion sprang up over the weekend, largely via Twitter, in response to what authors and others believed was a decision by Amazon to remove adult titles from its sales ranking. On Sunday evening, however, an Amazon spokesperson said that a glitch had occurred in its sales ranking feature that was in the process of being fixed. The spokesperson added that there was no new adult policy.Why am I picturing a guy named Arthur Glitch sitting in Amazon HQ?
Seriously though, that in an incredibly slippery response. There's no new adult policy, but amazon's stated policy when they responded to an authors is:
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.
Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.
Best regards,
Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage
So not new policy, but new enforcement. VERY Slippery, Ashlyn. Plus if I'm right, you're treating customers in bad faith. So it's selective new enforcement of old policy - or does Amazon.fail actually expect people to believe that a random series of events caused the deranking of queer friendly books?
NEW UPDATES HERE
People have been calling Amazon, flooding their customer service line. A mazon asked that we send an email instead. Oh LOL no. Making the protest quiet and easy to handle defeats the purpose. In case you're having trouble finding the numbers (you have to sign in before they let you see an actual phone number, and that's hard if you've cancelled your account) here ya go, courtesy of cliche ideas:
US Customer Service
Phone toll-free in the US and Canada: (800) 201-7575 or (866) 216-1072
Phone from outside the US and Canada: (206) 346-2992 or (206)-266-2992
Another direct line: (206) 266-2335
E-mail: orders@amazon.com (I think this will still work, but no guarantees)
E-mail address and the fax numbers seem to go on- and off-line with some regularity. Readers have also had luck with the following addresses:
resolution@amazon.com
charge-inquiries@amazon.com
jeff@amazon.com
(This last e-mail address sends back an note from Amazon that using it won't help you. There may be nobody reading the e-mail that comes to this address.)
Amazon's rebate center: 1-866-348-2492
Amazon Corporate Accounts:1-866-486-2360
Snail mail to customer service
Amazon.com, Inc.
Customer Service
PO Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226
Service for Amazon Sellers
877-251-0696
They also have special e-mail accounts for spoofing and abuse:
stop-spoofing@amazon.com
reports@amazon.com
(This information was provided by a reader! Thanks!)
Canadian Customer Service
Phone 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific: (877)-586-3230
Corporate Offices, Seattle
(206) 622-2335
The fax number has changed. 206-266-1832 is no longer a fax number.
New! Fax for Amazon's legal Department: 206-266-7010
UK Customer Service
Phone: +44.208.636.9200
More UK numbers, from a reader:
Freephone (only from within the UK): 0800 279 6620
Phone (outside the UK): +44 20 8636 9451
Fax (free from within the UK): 0800 279 6630
Fax (outside the UK): +44 20 8636 9401
An Aussie who contacted me verified the number above but for Aussies you need to dial it this way: 0011 1 206 266-2992.
UK Snail Mail:
Amazon.co.uk Ltd
Patriot Court
1-9 The Grove
Slough
SL1 1QP
Amazon.com Headquarters
Address: 1200 12th Ave., Ste. 1200
Seattle, WA 98144
Phone: (206) 266-1000
Fax: (206) 622-2405
Info e-mail: in@amazon.com is no longer a working e-mail address.
(Amazon's CEO is Jeff Bezos, if you want a name to put on an e-mail or fax to this office.)
Incidentally, the cool kids on twitter have unmasked Amazon's technical officer's blog and twitter so that we can let him know what we think of this new program.
I'm about to lose internet access for the afternoon (I think. They're doing some work on the guesthouse and my modem is still plugged in over there) so I'm posting this now and hopefully can update when my connection is more stable.
Edit: I have internet on and off. Exciting!