Dear Amazon

I'm probably the last reader around to get clued into the recent hullabaloo around Amazon, but here is an excellent recap of what's going on. It makes me angry for a number of reasons I haven't seen much discussed, and frankly, I don't believe the recent PR statement that a technical glitch was to blame. What technical glitch targets pro-gay literature of all stripes, while leaving vitriolic anti-gay tirades untouched? Utter nonsense. On the plus side, it sounds like they now realize what a shit-storm they've unleashed, and are probably well on their way to fixing it. Anyway, here's the letter I sent.

Hello,

I'm writing to voice my disgust and disappointment with Amazon's recent decision to strip books with gay, lesbian, transgender and other supposedly "adult" content of their Amazon sales rankings, thereby making them harder to search for, and causing them to disappear from bestseller lists and other site features. I believe this policy is deeply misguided for a number of reasons:

• It's being applied in a discriminatory way. Although ostensibly about "protecting" your "entire customer base" from "adult content," many violent and/or heterosexually erotic titles (e.g. Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds) have retained their sales ranks, whereas childrens' books and sociology about queer issues (e.g. Heather Has Two Mommies) have been stripped of theirs. This reeks of a homophobic, anti-sex agenda that I, as an educated person and former Amazon customer, find deeply offensive.
• It was implemented without transparency. The current furor over this decision proceeds, as far as I can tell, from the blog post of one writer who asked for an explanation for his missing sales rank, and received the following email in reply:
  
  
  
  

  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.

  This implies to me that there was no public announcement of this supposedly "protective" feature, no opportunities for Amazon customers to give feedback. And honestly, I can understand why. Who would support a feature that costs their favorite authors significant sales revenue? Or that makes it less convenient to find books similar to one they'd previously enjoyed? This policy isn't just morally wrong; it's an idiotic business decision, which seems to have been taken without consulting or even notifying the parties most affected.
• It's underhanded and hypocritical. If you believe these books are objectionable, you have the option to stop selling them. That would be censorship too, but at least it would be forthright and consistent. Instead, you are continuing to take money for these works, while skewing your data so that Amazon users searching for books on "homosexuality" will not happen upon My Gender Workbook, Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life, Stone Butch Blues, or other titles presenting queer folks in a positive or neutral light, unless they search for them by name. (I notice that A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality and You Don't Have to Be Gay retain their sales rankings, however: further evidence of the biased application of this ridiculous policy.) The lack of transparency, coupled with the duplicitous skewing of search results, leads me to believe you were trying to give casual searchers on your site a false impression of the literature on homosexuality, while at the same time continuing to profit from those savvy enough to search for their desired books by title.
• It's censorship, which is inappropriate regardless of the above points. Your "entire customer base" does not need to be protected from gay romance novels, left-wing childrens' books, or academic treatises on the history of sexuality. On the contrary, many intelligent adults LIKE to read these things, and we should not be relegated to some need-to-know ghetto of your site.

Until this policy is reversed and the sales ranking restored, I'll be doing my book-shopping elsewhere and encouraging everyone I know to do the same.

Best,
Emily Johnson