Revisiting #amazonfail.

This blog entry from the Baltimore Sun‘s Nancy Johnston neatly sums up many of my feelings about how Amazon handled its recent problems concerning materials that had gay and lesbian content. At this point, even with most of the work having been relisted and in its proper place in search, I’m still disappointed and a bit baffled by the way that the company has handled the entire mess. Amazon first pinned the blame on a glitch before letting a hacker take credit and then somehow the French somehow got involved, and over week later, there’s still no apology or clear explanation for what happened from the company.

I can’t help but think that if this had happened with books about black culture or Jewish people, the company would be falling over themselves to fix the gaping hole in their PR, but when it comes to the gay people, they’re really not concerned. Or – worse yet – they’re trying to actively avoid having to make any kind of pro-gay statement that might tick off the conservative minority that gets really upset when people are treated equally, and that bugs the shit out of me.

An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos

Jeff:

I’ve been an avid customer of Amazon.com for quite some time now, purchasing between $100 and $200 worth of books, DVDs, games, electronics, and music each month. I think the Amazon mp3 store is a prime example of how to sell music online, and it’s obvious that a great deal of thought has been placed in editorial pieces such as your annual ten best lists. I’ve always been happy to give Amazon my money, and joined your affiliate program because the company offers the chance for people who don’t have good local book stores and comic shops to pick up material I’ve enjoyed and discussed on my blog. Each month, I send between $1,000 and $3,000 of business your way through the affiliate links on the sites I maintain as well as a Twitter account set up for music, movie, and other geek-friendly deals. I’ve always had a good relationship with your company.

However, that relationship, which currently means between $13,000 and $26,000 per annum for your business, will be over unless you do not immediately take action to reverse your company’s new “Adult Materials Policy,” a blatantly homophobic and hypocritical rule that means that Alan Moore’s sexually explicit Victorian graphic novel Lost Girls is currently available through the sales rank-oriented search and lists, but not Radclyffe Hill’s acclaimed The Well of Loneliness, a lesbian romance set in the same era that features no sex. Some people with more patience than I have crafted a list that includes those two titles and several more egregious examples of this policy.

In an era where more people are becoming more accepting of those who aren’t like them – just look at our last presidential election – it’s a shame that the web’s largest retailer has decided to take a step back to the past and marginalize a vital segment of our society through rules that seem tailored to enforce a damaging, unhealthy status quo that has left so many leading unhappy lives. What’s next, removing black authors and materials about black culture from the sales ranks? If the web as we know it had existed in 1965, people would have been telling you that was the right thing to do, and they would have been as wrong then as your business is right now with this decision.

Yes, Jeff, you’re the CEO of just one online retailer, but it’s the biggest online retailer. Wouldn’t you like to give people one more reason to say that you’re the best? Hell, this decision may have passed you by entirely; and I’m willing to give you and those in your organization a chance to rectify this mess. I’m leaving the Amazon affiliate links on my site for another week, but if your decision has not changed by next Sunday, I’ll cancel my Amazon Prime membership, remove any and all affiliate links, and walk away from your company entirely.

Yours,
Kevin Church