Monday, April 13th, 2009
There has been considerable noise in the blogosphere lately about Amazon.com “accidentally” de-ranking thousands of gay and lesbian books. Without a sales ranking, it’s hard to find those books in search. In theory, this was done because the books were considered “adult” – and yet none of the straight “adult” books were de-ranked. The situation has been called AmazonFail on blogs and Twitter, where the news has been spreading like wildfire. The latest update is that Amazon admits the mistake was “embarrassing” – but they haven’t apologized for it yet. Some people have linked to a LiveJournal post claiming to have automated the reporting of GLBT books as being “adult” but personally I don’t think that was legit, I think it’s someone trying to get fame for it. I think it was just a dumb fluke on Amazon’s part. That said, I’m pleased to note that our recommended reading (as seen in the right-hand column) is provided by Powell’s, an independent bookstore headquartered in Portland, OR.
