I am so not giving up my Amazon. If I started boycotting everything that went against what i believed in, I’d never leave the house and I’d starve. Yes, they made a mistake, get over it and get on with it.

Amazon has even stated: “This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.”

Ham hands.. gotta love ham hands!

seems some french guy got all excited and f’d everything up.

You know how hard I laughed when you tested it on me last night and I’m laughing equally as hard at the added content. 

My little conspiracy theory debunker…

People see causes where there are none sometimes because history has shown then they should.  I don’t fault anyone for having assumed there was a conspiracy here.  I see conspiracies everywhere.  But, I totally agree with Bubblewench.  Gotta pick your battles… and get the facts.

Can’t wait to start using that cookbook!!!

(PS - It still says I am a Democrat on my voter registration form...)

Very interesting… and very correct.  Thank you for posting something coherent for me to read so early in my morning—uhm not that it was done just for ME.  But that was a great post.

Oh and because I’m too lazy to post on the other post about IHOP… first, I can’t believe POPPY’s never gone before.  Second, I love that you boycotted the previous IHOP for years.  I do that exact thing for businesses that are that ridiculous. 

I love Amazon… gay literature ranking or not

Ok, that cookbook you just got?  Does it include calories on the dishes?  Break downs (like protein VS carb VS fat)?

I’m a huge supporter of Amazon - I’ve been with them since they started and a Prime member as soon as they offered that.  I order from them almost weekly.  However, even if this was actually a cataloging error, it’s still ridiculous on their part to take two days to respond to something that had everyone up in arms.

Saying #amazonfail doesn’t mean that you’re boycotting them.  It means that you expect more from a company that has otherwise shown itself to be ahead of the curve. 

I’m still not happy with their explanation.  I’ll use them, but I’m going to be warier now.

(And, in the past, I remember seeing a “flag this as objectionable” link next to products on Amazon.com.  I don’t know when they removed it, but if there’s a chance that they only removed it yesterday, that would be very unfortunate.)

Annnnnnddddd I get it now.

Well, the Amazon thing.  I’ll never understand people who cut out the carbs.  It’s just....wrong.  But, then again, I’m a carboholic.  I am nothing without mashed potatoes.

Well, if you’re going to go get all logical and shit and do freaking actual RESEARCH, then how am I supposed to go jumping madly from conclusion to conclusion?

I suspected something was amiss when I first heard about this. I agree with you, but I’m with Adam, too. Shouldn’t have taken them two days to say something.

Because goD forbid they actually do research themselves to find out what happened internally before making a prepared statement with FACTUAL information!!! It’s not like the books went missing, you could still buy them, they just got unranked over a double holiday weekend. One person’s BFD, another person’s crisis.

Typos corrected after my incensed Send.

I was gonna wait to think about it until the next time I wanted to order something from them.  Which is usually about once a month.  By then they should have it all fixed, right?

I wasn’t satisfied with the initial explanation that was given—“glitch” is meaningless and does nothing to explain why certain types of books were having their rankings dropped. And, for the record, this apparently had been going on since February (when Probst inquired). Amazon’s explanation then was that they did that on items that were listed as “adult.” I simply think the initial reaction was sort of “eh… whatever.” Not good from a PR/Marketing standpoint.

What I find really interesting is that there hasn’t been a lot of media coverage about this. The First Dog is getting more press than this did. This post is the first I’ve heard of a cataloging error.

I get all kinds of news feeds on my desktop all day (including Wired and NYT) and saw nothing even though I was keeping an eye out. I wasn’t actively looking because I didn’t have time, but thought it was interesting that it didn’t get more play. That whole mommyblogger/Motrin thing was bigger—and that was WAY more stupid than this.

I don’t think a technical explanation would have been necessary… but you saw the e-mail that Faiqa got back. Someone could have crafted a better generic response that at least gave the appearance that they realized this was an issue for some people. It would have taken all of two minutes for someone to write it.

It’s not a huge thing, but it could have been a PR nightmare for Amazon if it caught fire.

I hate amazon.

See. YOU could order somehting on amazon dot com, and send it to me, in Canada, and amazon will mail it to me. Shipping is nasty expensive, but still, it would get here.

Me? In Canada? I cannot order on amazon dot com and have something shipped to myself. I am forced to go to amazon dot ca where they have jack shit all.

If I could order items from amazon and get them shipped at a reasonable price, i would love amazon. until then,

I hate amazon

(seriously, go to amazon dot ca, check out the bounty we are offered   )

I did *not* accuse them of censorship.  The Nazi reference might have supported your inference,but, no, I never accused Amazon of censorship.

I was, and still am, not satisfied with these listing practices.  I think you saw past the content and purpose of *my* post and superimposed the feelings you had for other posters and tweeters upon me. 

I did do my research, and I, am personally, a little irritated at some of the comments that suggest that “people” should do their research.  Yes, some “people” did.  And after learning the facts, these “people” are still not satisfied with Amazon’s response.  Those “people” throwing around the word “people” need to be reminded that I am far too objective and even headed to join a lynch mob.

My opinions on most things are the product of research.  This is reflected in my life and political choices to the point that I feel no need to list exhaustive proof.

Disagreement with you on a subject should not naturally translate to an error in judgment.

It could be simply a divergence in perspective.  I wish you had considered that before you singled me out among the tens of thousands of tweeters and hundreds of posters who posted yesterday. 

I read as much as I could on this subject on at as many sites as possible.  I would never post something that might affect the revenue of a company without garnering information from *credible* sources.  AP, Reuters, ABC, these are the news services that I read daily.  They are the ones I consulted prior to typing my post.

Here are the facts as I understood them:

Fact: There was a removal of sales rank from an overwhelming number of GLBT titles.  I am aware that not all of them were affected and that some of the works affected were not GLBT titles, at all.  I understand that is highly likely that this removal was unintentional on the part of Amazon.

Fact: Amazon, a multinational corporation, with a strong history of technical savvy did not fix this ranking issue with a speed that I deemed adequate.

Fact: Amazon bellydanced around the issue and did not state that this removal of sales ranking would not affect future GLBT titles being stripped of their sales ranking.  They also did not, at length, discuss the ramifications of “objectionable” status enough to satisfy me.

Fact: People who were in PR do not work in IT.  There is no correlation between issuing the kind of statement I mentioned above and fixing a technical issue.  There should not have been a delay at all on the PR side.

Other than saying that they’re going to fix it, they haven’t addressed any of these things, yet.

Yes, you have the benefit of having composed this post several hours after I did, Dawg.  So, yes, you may have more information, but my level of tolerance is far lower than yours.  This does not make me stupid.  Or uninformed.  It just reflects a different perspective than you and the others above who were not bothered by this issue and were willing to wait longer for further explanation.

As for the response from Amazon, I don’t feel they were rude, nor was I.  I was extremely polite, actually, and they were as polite as expected.  I fault their corporate response in that I feel they could have addressed the issue more directly. 

Finally, I did not ask anyone to boycott Amazon unless they were already upset by this.  I wrote at length about consumer choice and at length about how this act was *my* choice.  My urge to boycott was borne out my distaste for people who talk a lot of smack about “issues” and think they’ve done something by simply writing a blog post.

And, by the way, I?  Am hardly undemocratic.

Another well done post! People are way too quick to jump to conclusions about shit, especially when it involves what could be discrimination.

YAY!!  You’re trying the cookbook!!  I hope you like it.

Ahem.

In other news…

I’m really hoping this whole Amazon thing gets resolved ASAP.  It’s fucking with buy-her hard core because I do almost ALL of my online shopping through Amazon.

But gay rights and equality is really, really important to me and I can’t push a site until I know there wasn’t some kind of bizarre discrimination or bigotry going on.

That being said, because of the convenience issue, etc. - I’m probably going to take the first sign of a good answer I get.  Heh.

But… But...BUT...there are so many wonderful things on Amazon dot com I Neeeeeeeeeed. And none of them can ever be mine. *sob*

However, It does cost me nothing to take Parker to his doctor for his exam every three months, so there IS that....

Hmm...the Alien Theory says that the secret base is in New Mexico...where TequilaCon will be held in just over a week from now… which noted blogger NYC Watchdog will be attending! COINCIDENCE?!

Yeah, probably.

(I am so out of the loop about some things I only recently realized that the Free Software Foundation had dropped their boycott of Amazon over the One-Click Shopping patent thing.  Thanks for writing this post.)

Forgot to subscribe.

I’ve been a customer of Amazon’s since 1996 or 1997 myself. I remember when they were a little start-up advertising on the radio.

Back in the beginning, I ordered a book from Amazon.com, and when it came to me, they had charged me more for the book than what they advertised on the website. I contacted customer service and they said that they had to charge the cover price, and the website price wasn’t always accurate.

I was livid. I wrote Amazon an letter stating that I did not think it was right to advertise one price and then charge a higher price for a product after the fact. I felt it was dishonest, and I wasn’t happy with the representative who told me that Amazon couldn’t change things because it was policy. I told them I would no longer be buying from them based on this policy. I received an email from Jeff Bezos stating that I was correct and the customer service representative should not have told me what she did. Jeff told me that I would find a credit to my account and that he hoped I would reconsider using Amazon. And because he made it right, I have continued to be a customer of Amazon.

So, when I saw about Amazon fail and how we should boycott them, I didn’t jump on the bandwagon, because of my experience with them. I figured there had to be more to the story.

And I really like your post. (Sorry for the blog entry sized comment.)

Once again, a voice of reason in the madness.

I’ve stayed completely clear of this one as I saw it unravel in my primarily book-oriented feeds/tweets. I can’t believe some evil Amazon rep was allowed to conspire against all erotica/GL Lit. I believe the ham-fisted explanation explains it best. Folks need to calm down and worry about real censorship issues. This was just a dumb IT person. They’re probably looking for a job now.

*I used the Nazi reference as a dramatic device, it was kind of a joke.  But, OK, I’ll concede.  Nazi reference ill used.

*I already KNEW that Ron Jeremy could perform auto fellatio and that Ellen talks about her cat.  No need to research that.

*Technical qualifications?  Ummm, does an obsolete computer science/software engineering degree from the 90s count?  OK, fine.  I’m willing to amend my qualification of “fix” to temporarily restore rankings until which time the shit can be fixed.

* I clarified the site reference you make in “fact 2” in my comments section.  The quote does not reflect my opinion entirely… only a facet of it.  Admittedly, my use of the word “aptly” was careless.

*Hello?  I’m of Middle Eastern origin (depending on whether the government is on good terms with Pakistan or not).  I’m more of an expert on belly dancing than you might surmise.  As soon as I deliver this baby, I *will* post a YouTube video that will make you rue the day you challenged me.  (In a good way).

*I cannot think of a single work of literature that I think should be deemed objectionable.  Except maybe a manual on how to molest children.  Even that is iffy.  I think that’s a slippery slope… my objection could be your universal philosophy.  Denying people the choice between “right and wrong” or “good and evil” is antithetical to the very core of who I am.  That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in repercussions of those choices.  And, yesss, I know Amazon is still offering the choice.  Not the point.

*You can be assured that I will stand by my choice.  I don’t have to be dared into standing firm and not being a hypocrite.  That comes quite naturally to me.

*Believe it or not, I did not read a single tweet with the hashtag of “AmazonFail.” I don’t remember how I got the Jezebel link (e-mail?)… but it wasn’t through twitter. 

*Be advised.  I like my ice cream with pickles.  And since you’re buying, it can be from Amazon, if you like. 

Since Amazon is your new GIRLFRIEND. 

:D LOL.

P.S. I’m sorry about the long ass comments. 

P.P.S. Yeah, yeah, I heard it.  Voice of reason.  Woo.  hoo.

I am waiting for Faiqa’a belly dance!

I get it now. Thank Gawd you’re here to clear things up for me! 

PS - I gave you an award.

See - this is why I love the internet and the blogging world. I love me some Amazon.com and no other site out there can touch them in terms of their selection and customer service.....well, except for Zappos.com in the shoe world. (But you know what I mean, right?) I would hate to have to reconsider using them because of supposed discrimination.

Thanks for taking the time to research and post your point of view....awesome as always!

1) This is one of the best blog entries I’ve read in a long time.  But I can be shallow and I probably liked it so much because I agreed with you.

2) I’m wondering when you’re gonna get around to trying to piss off me.  You’ve been making the rounds and I think maybe you missed me.