Interesting view of Amazon through a writer/publisher's eyes

[Elfwreck]

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.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by pking36330

But even considering that some government entity should control how Amazon manages their website is just more socialist government fervor that is currently costing us billions a day in added tax burden.

The lack of regulation and deregulation that happened during the '80s through 2006s is what caused your problems, not the fact that (another) government is now forced to clean up after corporate America made a mess.
Furthermore, the one is entirely irrelevant to the other, and arguably a red herring, as there already are "government entities" controlling company's behavior. They're called "laws", (such as the one that controls the right to free speech and the obverse) and they're generally based on enforcing the constitution (among other things).

[maynard]

Originally Posted by Andybaby

my family has made over 100 orders from amazon over the years. thousands of dollars, and amazons support is the best, their return policy is the best, their reviews are the best, not many sites even have reviews. their shipping is the best.

I've spent over ten thousand dollars buying products from Amazon over the last decade. But given what's happened these last two years with that firm, I've canceled my account and refused to do any further business with the company. I feel much better about Amazon not being one of their customers any longer. I'd feel even better if Amazon changed their policies due to a large scale customer-rebuke. And there's always Chapter 7. I'd feel really good about that right now.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

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.

Where do you get the idea that filtering adult content is homophobic? Yes, they had an issue recently where more than 50,000 books got labelled as 'adult' and the books that got noticed were gay/lesbian related. Without seeing a list of all 50,000 books we don't know whether it was all that specific though. And, it was resolved within a couple of days. It boggles my mind that a store that sells very adult books, movies, toys and other items specifically targetted at gay and lesbian customers would be labelled as homophobic simply because those items don't come up in a default search from the front page.

Amazon does continue to filter adult tagged books. They are under no obligation to even carry adult products, much less display them in every search. Some people are offended by the filter, and that makes them choose not to shop at Amazon. That's their call. Personally, if I started getting hits on adult items in my Amazon searches, that would affect my shopping there as well. I'd certainly tell my kids not to browse Amazon any more, and it would probably reduce my shopping there. So Amazon has to decide whether more people will be offended by filtering or non-filtering, and which will help them sell more.

Convenience stores put adult magazines behind the counter. Many video stores have a specific area of the store for adult movies. You're not allowed in unless you're an adult. By filtering, Amazon has made the bulk of their store kid-friendly. You can, by narrowing your search terms, find adult content to your heart's content - you just have to be looking for it.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by pking36330

... You are making a value judgement that Amazon filtering searches or deleting user posts on their website is 'unethical' and requires a 'remedy' of some sort.....

There is no "value judgment" here: purposefully providing incomplete answers to a query, without disclosure, is generally called "lying." It prevents the questioner from making informed decisions.

[taosaur]

I don't like Amazon's business model for the Kindle and associated store, or any of their past efforts at providing electronic content (music, video), but I don't see how anyone could reasonably object to the clearly identified removal of a competitor site from the review in the OP. They left the review intact while removing one piece of objectionable material and making it clear that it had been removed.

Originally Posted by pking36330

You are making a value judgement that Amazon filtering searches or deleting user posts on their website is 'unethical' and requires a 'remedy' of some sort.

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.

While Sonist drifts here and there into "T'ain't right" territory, there is a pragmatic basis to his argument. Particularly for Amazon, which is not only a retailer but a marketplace for retailers, manipulating searches and reviews to promote some products above others or paint an overly-rosy picture violates good-faith expectations of both buyers and sellers on their site. It may produce a quarterly uptick in Kindle sales, for instance, but a reputation for deceptive business practices will hurt them in the long run.

Personally, I haven't seen evidence that they or even Newegg, which is strictly a retailer, use such practices, though you seem to be saying they should. Clear business communication is only a liability if your product doesn't stand on its merits.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Where do you get the idea that filtering adult content is homophobic?

Filtering same-sex erotica but not opposite-sex erotica is homophobic.
Categorizing children's books that deal with homosexuality as "adult" is homophobic.

Yes, they had an issue recently where more than 50,000 books got labelled as 'adult' and the books that got noticed were gay/lesbian related.

And books dealing with disabilities and sexuality. Interesting how when gay people or disabled people try to get laid, that's "adult themes," but the Playboy centerfold collection wasn't. The homophobic logic is pretty obvious there.

And, it was resolved within a couple of days. It boggles my mind that a store that sells very adult books, movies, toys and other items specifically targetted at gay and lesbian customers would be labelled as homophobic simply because those items don't come up in a default search from the front page.

Being willing to sell to less-desirable customers in a back room is just as much bigotry as refusing to sell to them at all.

Amazon does continue to filter adult tagged books. They are under no obligation to even carry adult products, much less display them in every search.

The issue isn't whether Amazon should filter adult products--it's what they're choosing to call "adult." Why is romance between two high school boys more "adult" than that between a high school boy & girl?

By filtering, Amazon has made the bulk of their store kid-friendly.

Amazon, unlike convenience stores, has no children as customers. You have to be 18 to buy from them. I understand they want minors to be able to view their content, if not purchase it, but as children can't make purchases there at all, there's much less reason to filter the searches.

You can, by narrowing your search terms, find adult content to your heart's content - you just have to be looking for it.

No, you can't. Searching for a specific title that's listed as "adult" won't turn it up in a general search. You have to know not only title or author, but specific category that Amazon's placed it in. "Narrow your search terms" shouldn't mean "wade through the search engine's categories in the hopes of figuring out where they've hidden what you're looking for."

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by GlennD

... It boggles my mind that a store that sells very adult books, movies, toys and other items specifically targetted at gay and lesbian customers would be labelled as homophobic simply because those items don't come up in a default search from the front page.....

The point is not filtering.

The point is, filtering results WITHOUT DISCLOSING to the searcher, that such filtering has taken place.

If Amazon had a preference setting, where you can chose to enable or disable filtering, nobody would have a problem. Or, if they disclosed, clearly, that the returned results are omitting certain items.

I don't know how to state this more clearly. Maybe, think of it as taking the Fifth vs. lying.

P.S. BTW, technically Amazon is a site for adults, by definition: they require a credit card for you to have an account. If adults can make purchasing decisions, presumably they can make search decisions as well.

[GlennD]

Amazon, unlike convenience stores, has no children as customers. You have to be 18 to buy from them. I understand they want minors to be able to view their content, if not purchase it, but as children can't make purchases there at all, there's much less reason to filter the searches.

P.S. BTW, technically Amazon is a site for adults, by definition: they require a credit card for you to have an account. If adults can make purchasing decisions, presumably they can make search decisions as well.

This isn't entirely accurate. While it's true that you need to be an adult (have a credit card) to BUY at Amazon, minors can and do SHOP at Amazon. My kids look at Amazon all the time, and if they see something they want they come to a parent to try to convince us to buy it for them.

A lot of the descriptions and pictures of items (not just books, obviously) are most certainly adult content. If those items start showing up on unfiltered searches to kids, you're going to see not just irate parents, but irate schools and businesses. Amazon doesn't want to have to put an access agreement up("click here to certify that you're over 18"), nor do they want to start showing up on filter lists that many responsible parents, schools and businesses use to block their kids/students/employees access to adult content.

Personally, I wouldn't have any objection to being able to modify the filter settings (as long as it defaulted to it's current settings - I don't expect that my kids are going to browse to a settings page). But Amazon is just trying to use good business sense, they're not trying to keep you from buying what you want to buy.

If adults can make purchasing decisions, presumably they can make search decisions as well.

Presumbly adults know how to find adult material if they want it, too.

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by GlennD

This isn't entirely accurate. While it's true that you need to be an adult (have a credit card) to BUY at Amazon, minors can and do SHOP at Amazon. My kids look at Amazon all the time, and if they see something they want they come to a parent to try to convince us to buy it for them.

And they might be interested in _Heather Has Two Mommies_, as it is a children's book. But--oops!--it was labeled as "adult" and disappeared from Amazon searches. Pure accident, I'm sure, nothing to do with homophobia at all, but you can see how these mistaken impressions get started.

Just like all those other books, biographies of people who, among all their other traits and achievements, also happen to be gay or lesbian; books about social and political activism that happen to be aimed at, among other audiences, gays and lesbians; romances whose characters just happen to be gay or lesbian; that kind of thing. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, that the books removed from the searches--which did indeed, as Amazon said, range through many categories--had that one thing in common.

I'm sure your children would be shocked by _Heather Has Two Mommies_ or a biography, or a book about political activism, or a high school romance (ew! kissing!!!). Whereas they'll be very comfortable with The Big Book of Playboy Centerfolds. Which was not removed from the search results. Maybe you should get it for them for Christmas, since it's so suitable for children.

For my own part, I have been choosing my own reading material without having my hand held for a long time now. I would like to have a way to turn nannysearch <i>off</i>, so I can actually find out what's available. I'm fairly plain vanilla in my personal life, but I think I can take it.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

And they might be interested in _Heather Has Two Mommies_, as it is a children's book. But--oops!--it was labeled as "adult" and disappeared from Amazon searches. Pure accident, I'm sure, nothing to do with homophobia at all, but you can see how these mistaken impressions get started.

Just like all those other books, biographies of people who, among all their other traits and achievements, also happen to be gay or lesbian; books about social and political activism that happen to be aimed at, among other audiences, gays and lesbians; romances whose characters just happen to be gay or lesbian; that kind of thing. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, that the books removed from the searches--which did indeed, as Amazon said, range through many categories--had that one thing in common.

All of the examples you're citing were filtered when the adult tag was mistakenly applied to multiple categories. The problem was resolved within a couple of days of being found. Did all 50,000 affected books have some relation to homosexuality? I don't know - I've never seen a list of all of the books. All I've seen are a couple of lists of 100 or so books - not even a quarter of a percent of the books affected. There's been a lot of jumping to conclusions over that .20%.

I'd agree that the Playboy centerfolds should be on the filtered list. If you go into a Borders or Barnes/Noble store you'll find that same book shelved with the photography, not in the sexuality section. Perhaps some of Amazon's categorization comes from the publisher?

Do a search for 'gay erotica' on Amazon. Over 2000 hits. Gosh, their filter must be broken! Or, maybe their filter is smart enough to include adult items if your search phrase contains adult terms. (That's only a guess, I have no real idea.)

Or, do a search for 'Joy of Sex'. You'll find not only the various editions of the straight sex manual, you'll also find 'The Joy of Gay Sex'. Again, homosexual item not being filtered.

And oddly enough, if I type in 'Heather', the first autofill suggestion is "Heather has two mommies".

Can anyone give me a current example of a book that ought to show up in a search, that isn't?

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by GlennD

(snip) Do a search for 'gay erotica' on Amazon. Over 2000 hits. Gosh, their filter must be broken! Or, maybe their filter is smart enough to include adult items if your search phrase contains adult terms. (That's only a guess, I have no real idea.)

Or, do a search for 'Joy of Sex'. You'll find not only the various editions of the straight sex manual, you'll also find 'The Joy of Gay Sex'. Again, homosexual item not being filtered.

And oddly enough, if I type in 'Heather', the first autofill suggestion is "Heather has two mommies".

Can anyone give me a current example of a book that ought to show up in a search, that isn't?

Perhaps you haven't been following this very closely; that's fine, we all have our separate interests that keep us busy--but when the OMGWTFBBQ hit the Web, Amazon said they would fix it, and as far as I can tell, set about doing just that as quickly as they could. Which was the only sensible thing to do, whether or not it was, as claimed, an accident. So of course you can find _Heather Has Two Mommies_ now; that's probably one of the first ones they fixed--they know just as well as we do how bad that looked once word got out.

And you can find a lot of the other stuff. Well and good; that is as it should be, and I'm happy to hear that is still the case.

What I wonder now is whether they fixed everything. There really is no practical way for me to find out. I don't know that there's even any practical way for *them* to find out.

But one of the social costs of a (let's give Amazon the benefit of the doubt) mistake like this is that people begin to wonder... How do I know this is an honest result?

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by GlennD

Presumbly adults know how to find adult material if they want it, too.

Sure they know how, as long as they were straight. Or looking for sex toys, which aren't filtered. But it would've been nice if people who were interested in anything beside those two things were told by the site that their search results weren't showing up, because those were deemed inappropriate.
Anyway, this discussion has been held about 40 times in the relevant thread, with one party mostly just not accepting that the fact that non-straight sexualities had the same rights when it comes to shelf space and display as straight stuff does, as "non-straight" (i.e., "deviant") deserves to be hidden, as it's ever so much scarier to find "brokeback mountain" than a dildo.
Still, I'm amused by the fact that you think that the fact that Amazon is "hiding" some stuff will prevent your children from finding sex- or sexuality-related material on the internet.

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Sure they know how, as long as they were straight. Or looking for sex toys, which aren't filtered. But it would've been nice if people who were interested in anything beside those two things were told by the site that their search results weren't showing up, because those were deemed inappropriate.

I don't see any evidence that gay items have any more filter than any other adult items, and I've given several examples. Can you show me anything that IS filtered out?

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Anyway, this discussion has been held about 40 times in the relevant thread,

You're right, it's pretty much been argued to death.

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

with one party mostly just not accepting that the fact that non-straight sexualities had the same rights when it comes to shelf space and display as straight stuff does, as "non-straight" (i.e., "deviant") deserves to be hidden, as it's ever so much scarier to find "brokeback mountain" than a dildo.

Actually, I've never argued that non-straight sexualities don't have a place on the shelf. Ever. I've argued that Amazon has a right to filter items as they deem fit, with an eye towards what kinds of search results will sell the most items.

And "Brokeback Mountain" is easy to find, even without searching for it specifically. (Try "Heath Ledger" as a search term)

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Still, I'm amused by the fact that you think that the fact that Amazon is "hiding" some stuff will prevent your children from finding sex- or sexuality-related material on the internet.

I don't have any illusions about what my kids can find on the internet. If they intend to find sexual content, they will. If they start getting hits on adult content at Amazon while looking for other stuff, then they won't browse Amazon anymore.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by GlennD

....I don't have any illusions about what my kids can find on the internet. If they intend to find sexual content, they will. If they start getting hits on adult content at Amazon while looking for other stuff, then they won't browse Amazon anymore.

You're so-o-o-o missing the point, it's not funny....