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Okay, this is definitely something that Amazon.com should not have done. To start, I will introduce you to a great new verb: Amazon Rank
amazon rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked
1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.
Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com's website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include "Bastard Out of Carolina," "Lady Chatterly's Lover," prominent romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.
Example of usage: "I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterly's Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene."
Alternate usage: "My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay."
It looks like Amazon launched a new feature before it was entirely flushed out. Now, I understand that people with children will often search Amazon, and may wish for books with more "adult" content to not appear in their searches. However, merely deleting sales ranks from these books causes them to appear not to exist unless you know exactly what category they would be filed under or are linked directly to the page. I tend to search by ISBN, and I don't know if that would be affected as well, but on the whole this is still a horrible idea. They should have at least added in a criterion allowing for these books to be excluded or included from searches, and probably should have two sales rank databases in order to do so. And removing the sales rank from a book can be highly detrimental to an author, because they won't appear on bestseller lists or even until MUCH further down in their own search results.
Until you implement something better, that doesn't affect sales ranks, there are going to be a lot of LGBT rights activists and authors whose works are affected (many whose works shouldn't have been but were because of a minor theme or a title word) who are very very angry at you. Meanwhile there are some cool sites urging you to take action: http://www.tararobertson.ca/blog/2009/amazon-fail/ (good links to petitions and how to e-mail Amazon), and http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html (a publisher who heard back from Amazon when he e-mailed them.) http://hummingbird604.com/2009/04/12/amazon-fail-motrin-moms-redux/ (this is the one that I was linked to first from Twitter.)
Thanks to Neil Gaiman for catching my attention via Twitter about this. Amazon, you've really got to implement an all or nothing for these exclusions. People are very, very angry. Censorship is not okay.
Edit: Here's a wonderful open letter to the company from someone who has explored the situation much more thouroughly: http://booksquare.com/open-letter-to-amazon-regarding-recent-policy-changes/
amazon rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked
1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.
Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com's website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include "Bastard Out of Carolina," "Lady Chatterly's Lover," prominent romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.
Example of usage: "I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterly's Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene."
Alternate usage: "My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay."
It looks like Amazon launched a new feature before it was entirely flushed out. Now, I understand that people with children will often search Amazon, and may wish for books with more "adult" content to not appear in their searches. However, merely deleting sales ranks from these books causes them to appear not to exist unless you know exactly what category they would be filed under or are linked directly to the page. I tend to search by ISBN, and I don't know if that would be affected as well, but on the whole this is still a horrible idea. They should have at least added in a criterion allowing for these books to be excluded or included from searches, and probably should have two sales rank databases in order to do so. And removing the sales rank from a book can be highly detrimental to an author, because they won't appear on bestseller lists or even until MUCH further down in their own search results.
Until you implement something better, that doesn't affect sales ranks, there are going to be a lot of LGBT rights activists and authors whose works are affected (many whose works shouldn't have been but were because of a minor theme or a title word) who are very very angry at you. Meanwhile there are some cool sites urging you to take action: http://www.tararobertson.ca/blog/2009/amazon-fail/ (good links to petitions and how to e-mail Amazon), and http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html (a publisher who heard back from Amazon when he e-mailed them.) http://hummingbird604.com/2009/04/12/amazon-fail-motrin-moms-redux/ (this is the one that I was linked to first from Twitter.)
Thanks to Neil Gaiman for catching my attention via Twitter about this. Amazon, you've really got to implement an all or nothing for these exclusions. People are very, very angry. Censorship is not okay.
Edit: Here's a wonderful open letter to the company from someone who has explored the situation much more thouroughly: http://booksquare.com/open-letter-to-amazon-regarding-recent-policy-changes/
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