[Infowarrior] - Amazon Says Error Removed Listings

[Richard Forno]

April 14, 2009
Amazon Says Error Removed Listings
By MOTOKO RICH

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/technology/internet/14amazon.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

In response to nearly two days of angry online commentary,  
particularly on Twitter, Amazon.com said on Monday that “an  
embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error” had caused thousands of  
books on its site to lose their sales rankings and become harder to  
find in searches.

Most of the company’s online critics complained that the problem  
appeared to have a disproportionate effect on gay and lesbian themed  
books, leading to cries of censorship.

The titles that lost their sales rankings during the weekend included  
James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room,” the gay romance novel  
“Transgressions” and “Unfriendly Fire,” a recently published book  
about the government’s policies on gays in the military.

But in an e-mailed statement that came late Monday, Amazon said 57,310  
books in several broad categories had been affected, including books  
on health and reproductive medicine.

On Sunday night, an Amazon spokeswoman told The Associated Press that  
there had been a “glitch in our systems,” but the company offered no  
further explanation for most of Monday, allowing suspicion and  
conspiracy theories to run rampant.

One hacker even tried to take credit for the incident, writing on his  
blog that he had taken advantage of bugs in Amazon’s Web site to trick  
people into flagging gay-themed books as inappropriate. Thousands of  
Twitter users included the tag “#amazonfail” in their messages on the  
subject, pushing it onto rankings of the most popular topics on the  
site and drawing in other users.

Some affected books started appearing in searches, with sales rankings  
restored, by early afternoon on Monday.

Sales rankings on Amazon are important to authors because they help  
place books on the Web site’s best-seller lists and help shoppers find  
them. Many of the affected titles disappeared from basic searches so  
that, for example, a search from Amazon’s home page for “E. M.  
Forster” did not turn up “Maurice,” Forster’s classic novel about a  
homosexual relationship. Nathaniel Frank, the author of the well- 
reviewed “Unfriendly Fire,” said he could not find a link to the  
hardcover edition of his book last weekend.

Word of the problem started spreading across blogs and Twitter on  
Sunday after Mark R. Probst, the author of “The Filly,” a gay western  
romance for young adults, posted on his blog that several gay  
romances, including his, had lost their sales rankings on Amazon. Mr.  
Probst e-mailed Amazon and got a reply that said the company was  
excluding “ ‘adult’ material from appearing in some searches and best- 
seller lists.”

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Probst said he was giving Amazon the  
benefit of the doubt. “I believe it was an error,” he said. “I don’t  
think it was anything malicious they were trying to do.”

But other authors were unconvinced that the changes were caused by a  
simple glitch.

“There are mistakes and there are mistakes,” said Daniel Mendelsohn,  
an author whose memoir “The Elusive Embrace” lost its sales ranking  
over the weekend. “At some point in this process, which I don’t  
understand because I’m not a computer genius, the words gay and  
lesbian were clearly flagged, as well as some kind of porno tag. I  
say, do I want my book in anyone’s mind to be equivalent to a porno?  
And the answer is no.”

Mr. Mendelsohn pointed out that books like “American Psycho,” a novel  
with sexually and violently explicit content, did not lose its sales  
rank. He teamed up with others affected by the problem, including the  
playwright and author Larry Kramer, to start a petition to boycott  
Amazon. As of Monday afternoon it had attracted more than 18,000 names.

Mr. Kramer said on Monday that he was willing to shelve the boycott  
for now. But in an e-mail message he wrote: “I don’t think for one  
second that this was a glitch,” adding, “We have to now keep a more  
diligent eye on Amazon and how they handle the world’s cultural  
heritage.”

Several publishers whose books were affected, including Simon &  
Schuster, the Penguin Group USA and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,  
declined to comment. Calls to a Random House representative were not  
returned.

Christopher Navratil, publisher of Running Press, a division of the  
Perseus Book Group, said in an e-mail message that his company had  
been in touch with Amazon to make sure its books were “ranked fairly  
and appropriately.”

At least one author said he had encountered malfunctions in his sales  
rankings on Amazon as far back as February. Craig Seymour, an  
associate professor of communications at Northern Illinois University  
and the author of “All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay  
Washington, D.C.,” a memoir, said his book had disappeared from most  
searches for several weeks but was restored in late February.

In a blog post late Monday, Mr. Seymour wrote that Amazon’s statement  
was a start, but not sufficient. “It does not explain why writers,  
like myself, were told by Amazon reps that our books were being  
classified as ‘adult products.’ ”

Amazon said in the statement that it planned “to implement new  
measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the  
future.” It did not elaborate on its statement.

Even after it explained the scope of the problem, Amazon continued to  
face criticism for its slow and limited response to the online blowup,  
particularly at a time when sites like Twitter can so easily  
accelerate and amplify a public outcry.

“Frankly, it’s surprising to hear that Amazon, which was a pioneer in  
the digital space, would miss this opportunity to react in real time  
and to manage this crisis better than they did,” said Gene Grabowski,  
chairman of the crisis and litigation practice at Levick Strategic  
Communications in Washington.

Mr. Grabowski added that he hoped Amazon had learned a lesson. “If it  
happens too often and you show a disregard or disrespect for the  
online conversation, then you’re going to be at a big disadvantage,”  
he said.

Miguel Helft contributed reporting.