Heterosexist Fail from Amazon

Amazon Rank  
Hi all,

rosehiptea has recently posted about Amazon being very heterosexist. Sexually explicit books aimed at heterosexual people (such as Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (which has pictures of over 600 naked women) and Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love" (an explicit heterosexual romance)) have been allowed to keep their sales ratings at Amazon. Yet Books at Amazon which focus on gay or lesbian issues, have been categorised as "adult books". These GLBTIQ focused books have had their sales ratings ripped away.

The following text in italics is from the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/amazon-rank/:

SB Sarah from “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” has created a page with the definition for “amazon rank.” LINK TO http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank with “Amazon Rank” as the anchor text. The link should look like this:Amazon Rank

This is known as Google-bombing.

Second of all: Urbandictionary.com. “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” is creating a definition and if it’s approved, you can vote on it to increase its prominence. Link to definition to come soon.

All you have to do is link to the page using these words: Amazon Rank. The more you do it, the higher up in rank the page will go, and the more successful it will be. One would hope.

The goal: that “Amazon Rank” points to the definition that underscores Amazon.com’s shortminded censorship and inconsistent policing of what ought to be accessible to the book buying public.
Sign this petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy to ask Amazon why the explicit books with a heterosexual focus are allowed to keep their sales ratings while the non-explicit romances, the histories and the biographies that deal with LGBTQ issues are not.

UPDATE 14 April 2009:

The following text in orange is from Craig Seymour’s blog at http://craigspoplife.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-amazon-homophobic.html  :

 

“UPDATE # 3 (4/13 8pm): Amazon has just released this statement about the controversy:

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.

CRAIG’S RESPONSE: It's a start but completely insufficient. It does not explain why writers, like myself, were told by Amazon reps that our books were being classified as "adult products." It also doesn't address why they took so long to do something about it, when they clearly knew about my issues back in February.http://craigspoplife.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-amazon-homophobic.html

Why didn't they address and fix the problems at that time?

And exactly what does a "cataloging error" mean? Was the error that they ever had an "adult" category or was the category simply overused? And if Amazon is going to maintain an "adult" category, who is going to determine what is "adult?" How will the criteria be applied to ensure that it's not prejudiced toward books with glbt contact; and will there be any way to appeal the process once the determination has been made? All of these questions need to be answered.

I don't think Amazon should be let off the hook until they address these very specific questions. Enough with the generic and vague statements.”