Quote:
Originally Posted by pking36330
I make exactly the opposite value judgement that this is an ethical and necessary business practice and as sole owner of their web presence, they don't owe consumers even a mention of how they do it or what they do.
|
They do owe their clients--the authors and publishers who list books with them--clear explanations of their policies, and to uphold their contracts. If those contracts indicate (even by implication) that searches by titles will find their books, and those searches are altered so that a direct title search doesn't find the books, they may be guilty of breach of contract or deceptive business practices. Or fraud, if it turns out they've been withholding royalties based on calculating book sales differently for different types of books.
Discrimination by sexual orientation or disability is illegal in many US states; if they can be shown to have made their service less useful, or more difficult to navigate, for gay or disabled customers, they are in violation of those laws.
They also have some obligation to be honest with their customers--if they've deliberately implied that the search function is less filtered and slanted than it is, they may be guilty of fraud/deceptive business practices. There are truth-in-advertising laws designed to protect consumers from businesses that promise a wide range of services, but only provide those services in limited, unstated circumstances.
Drawing in customers by claiming (or implying) functionality that's not offered is a shady practice, and can be against the law. Saying, "Books 50% off!" but not telling the customer that it's only on second Thursdays of the month between 1 and 4 pm, is illegal. Saying "search our site!" without telling the customer that the search is limited to those books that haven't been tagged as "adult" by some criteria nobody will explain, might be illegal.
Whether or not they're breaking any laws, the search problems show they are either homophobic (which I doubt), or happy to cater to a homophobic worldview (which I expect they would claim is "just good business practice"); they deserve all the outrage and disgust they've gotten, and quite a bit more.
Protecting the sensibilities of bigots is their legal right (within certain limits) but it doesn't make them an ethical business; it makes them supporters of bigotry.