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Monday, April 13, 2009

Amazon Strips "Adult" Books Of Sales Ratings

In a bizarre move, Amazon has stripped books that they classify as "adult" from their sales ratings, including work by Alan Moore and -- here's the kicker -- ALL GLBT titles. This is censorship out and out, and we should definitely not let them get away with it.

"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

I'm curious as to what prompted Amazon to do this; their reasons above doesn't convince me. Surely they wouldn't have done so out of their own accord, as it hurts their sales. Alan Moore for instance, is huge, and by making people potentially not find his books earns them less money.) They must have received pressure from somewhere...

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AGAINST AMAZON

PS: Books about Hitler still have rankings. But it probably contains only violence, not sex. And books such as I Love Female Orgasm and PC games like Grand Theft Auto still have their ratings. So...like Alice Pieszecki used to say: "What the fuck!"

2 comments:

00 said...

Wait...so just for clarification, they're labelling ALL lgbt titles as 'adult'? As in, Annie on my Mind is an 'adult' title as far as Amazon is concerned?

Lynne Jamneck said...

This is the kicker - for some reason, Annie On My Mind still has a rating, probably because it is published by a mainstream publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) as opposed to a small gay press. Who knows how where they are drawing the line. For instance, The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith? No rating anymore, but also published by a big publisher, W.W. Norton & Co.

???