After a full day of Easter activities yesterday, I came home to find that Amazon was hard at work, disappearing sales rankings from “adult” books. Amazon seems to have interesting fucked up way of deciding what is “adult” though, especially since the deleting of sales ranking and the blocking of the books from appearing in some searches, and appearing on some best-seller lists seems to target books dealing with gay, lesbian and trans themes, and no not all of them are even “dirty”. Take for example the following from Meta Writer who seems as of last night had compiled a list of the books affected :

The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students

http://www.amazon.com/Advocate-College-Guide-LGBT-Students/dp/155583857X/

No protagonist, but intended for LGBT college-bound students.
(Sales rank removed)

Robert Adrich Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History (amazon.ca)
(Sales rank removed)

Really these are offensive perhaps? Adult?

Here are some other books impacted: “Heather Has Two Mommies”, A Biography of Ellen Degeneres,

Oh just to show that they are equal opportunity haters and that Amazon doesn’t think disabled peeps should be getting down: “The Ultimate Guide to Sex And Disability” has been stripped of its sales ranking.

No se, some of it seems random and not unified pero it still feels dangerous especially since Playboy books and a book about porno guy Ron Jeremy still have their sales ranks up as do hateful books like “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”. Certain glbt films/dvds still have sales rankings.

Amazon is saying that the stripping of sales ranking, which impacts searchability and therefore accessibility is a “glitch”, one that has been going on since at least February according to some. More likely is that this is a result of some organized “pro-family” orgs who have been complaining to Amazon via flagging certain titles.

For more information follow #Amazonfail at Twitter

In the meantime you can contact Amazon executive customer service via email: ecr@amazon.com and the customer service phone number is 1-800-201-7575 if you wish to share your views with them.

There is also a petition up here.

Via / Jezabel, LA Times, Mark R. Probst, Smart bitches, Trashy books