Maybe I can buy my books elsewhere, but by doing so I am validating Amazon’s narrow minded view of the world, I am accepting that censorship is OK, and I am just giving up and accepting to lose this moral battle. Like I said, I’m not convinced this is the right course of action for me.

You quote Francine Saint Marie’s quest – I’ve been following that one, and I am rather shocked at the lack of commentary and/or support from other authors on the topic. Granted, it’s not easy nor fun to fight against the machine, but what is achieved by staying put and not saying anything? Just that Amazon’s “adult” policy is withheld with total impunity, and that the near monopoly that they are dictates in practice what people may find and eventually read.

The latest disgrace in this story – which by no means concluded at the end of April, is that Amazon has removed the author’s blogs from the selling point. Francine Saint Marie kept blogging on Amazon about this censorship ordeal (along the lines of what can be read in the linked article), until a couple of days ago when Amazon decided they’d had enough and just took the blog down. Just like that.

In my opinion, this goes beyond book buying habits, to me personally it’s turned into a matter of rectifying a serious wrong.

Thanks for the space to put a word in.

I believe that amazon was being truthful when it claimed that GLBT material was not the only target and that over 50,000 titles were affected, but that may be the only forthright statement the company has made on this subject. Both our books, along with many other titles on Tantra, were de-ranked. And this issue isn’t limited to books. We’ve made two instructional DVDs; both are explicit; one was (and remains) de-ranked and the other was not, which just illustrates the arbitrary nature of this “policy.”

As of this morning and ever since our books were de-ranked, name searches for myself have not come up with the print editions of either book. The Kindle versions show up, as does our still-ranked DVD. It’s also clear that some kind of filtering is in place for adult material on my amazon homepage. Given my browsing history, there ought to be a lot more sex-related material, as there used to be. It’s also evident that our de-ranked DVD is no longer being paired with other films under the “Frequently Bought Together” listing.

Amazon has enormous power, if not a near-monopoly. These measures limit customer access to our books and one of our DVDs, making them harder to find for those who are actively seeking them and directing those who might be interested to other products that haven’t arbitrarily been designated as “adult.” This is a pernicious form of corporate censorship.

Amazon secretly tags certain materials as adult, gives no notice to authors (or producers, in the case of the DVD, I checked) and provides no recourse for challenging that designation. This uproar may have been caused by a technical error that led to the inclusion of many additional books in the “adult” category, but the attitude itself, the utter lack of transparency, and the continuing failure to respond in a meaningful way are the real issues.

At this point, I’m through with amazon, as convenient as it may be. I’ll be boycotting; we’ll be replacing our amazon bookstore and link to indiebound.org instead. I’ve also notified the Authors Guild, and hope they’ll take on the cause.

Here’s what amazon should do, if it wants any of my business back (though I’d probably limit purchases to electronics and the like.) Come clean about the existence of this policy; let the public know exactly what that policy is and what criteria are used when materials are designated as “adult;” provide authors with a mechanism to challenge the designation; stop hiding materials from customers who might want to purchase them; make the ranking system fair and accurate by including all books and DVDs in its catalog. If amazon deems it necessary to have a filtering system, a safe search approach would be a much less damaging way to do it, but I’m not convinced that such a feature would be necessary.

The policy, not the “glitch,” is the problem. It always has been. The glitch just brought attention to a secret policy that is unacceptable in its own right.

Sorry for any typos or redundancies in this post; the lack of a preview function makes it hard to proofread.

I have switched (or at least started to switch) the purchase links on my review blog from the Amazon.com store to other online store links, and I no longer link to my Amazon.com wishlist.

One good thing to come out of Amazonfail (via Sarah Rees Brennan) is the discovery of The Book Depository which does free worldwide shipping. My first book from my first purchase arrived today, and the second should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday. A fail for Amazon has meant a win for both TBD and me.

Oh, and I have a nice list of GLBT titles to check out at some point too.