care for a little crucifixion with that cross?

I knew the folks at Amazon were pretty stupid(in the sort of way that makes a lot of money and destroys civilization as they go about it--rather in the vein of Microsoft and the Bush Administration). But I've been a customer before. Not all the time, but sometimes.

No longer, at least for the time being.

They've just decided to strip the sales rankings of their GLBT fiction and non-fiction offerings under the guise of calling it adult. So basically, most books with any gay content (and I assume magazines, too...you know like that one that published Brokeback Mountain...what was it again? Oh yeah, the NEW YORKER) are effectively hidden from the search programs. In finest hypocritical form, they still sell the works, you just can't find it very easily. And in even further hypocrisy, they're happy to sell you rabid, vivid, graphic straight sex right from any search field (see Twitter re: Amazonfail and various blogs for details).

Smart people with brains in their heads and money in their pockets are slamming back by Google Bombing the fuck out of them. Link to this to raise this new term "Amazon Rank" in Google standings and hopefully tarnish their reputation enough to make them reverse this idiotic policy.

Also, you can sign a petition here.


UPDATE: as of Sunday, Amazon is calling their stripping of sales ranking indicators a "glitch," despite offering a letter of policy explaining their actions (and I mean explaining in the loosest sense of the word). This is via Mark Probst.

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.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D

Member Services

Amazon.com Advantage

Incidentally, this is not only affecting friends of mine, this would influence sales of my work in progress, which features a gay protagonist. (His sexual identity is not a major factor of his character and I don't have any vivid sex scenes planned for the book because he's not the type to just go sleep around with any Tom, Dick, and Harry.)

Reference Twitter #amazonfail and #glitchmyass for continuing updates and outrage.