[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by rhadin

An ebook not being sold by Amazon can be a funeral for that book and author (if we accept Amazon's claims of controlling 70%+ of the ebook market), whereas rejection by the corner bookstore essentially has no effect on the book or the author.

If you are writing books with extreme content, why should you be surprised if a mainstream retailer chooses not to carry your work?

Originally Posted by rhadin

because of Amazon's dominance in the ebook marketplace, it should provide authors and publishers with clear guidelines of what is acceptable beforehand

This is not going to work. Even if any self-publishing firm set out highly specific guidelines, you will always have works that are bounced when someone interprets them as being within the guidelines; and/or works that someone thinks should be bounced but are allowed anyway.

I.e. no matter how detailed the policy gets, someone somewhere is going to declare its application to be "arbitrary" and "unfair" -- especially when it's their book that gets bounced.

Nor does presence in the market provide them with any additional responsibilities. Smashwords expressly states that they can pull a work at any time for no reason whatsoever. Is that better? Is that magically acceptable because Smashwords is currently smaller? Is there a magic market share at which they would be required to elaborate on their policies?

Originally Posted by rhadin

when exercising its rights after accepting a book for sale on its site, that it provide clear guidance to the author of exactly how the book suddenly violates Amazon's guidelines when it did not violate the guidelines at time of acceptance.

Yes, Amazon is clearly exercising its rights.

You know full well that none of these services are functioning like a traditional publisher and reviewing titles prior to release. Nor are they required to do so.

Originally Posted by rhadin

In addition, there is the question of whether Amazon has the right (or if it has the right whether there is a moral obligation involved) to agree to terms of a contract with an author, accept the author's book for sale on its site, and then weeks later unilaterally change the terms of the contract and declare the author in violation of the new, unilaterally imposed terms.

Yes, they have the right.

Any retailer can pull any product off its shelves at any time. Similarly, a publisher can discontinue sales of a book at any time. One recent example is Last Train to Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino. Due to the author apparently relying on a fraudulent source, the publisher pulled the book, and in doing so did not violate any contract.

In addition, Amazon is not "changing the terms of the contract." They reserve the right to pull a title at any time. Publishing it on May 1 and pulling it on May 10 does not indicate any change in any terms.

I suggest you stop inventing ethical and contractual obligations. If you don't like Amazon's policies, that's fine, but your objections here have no basis.