Comfortable? Yeah, probably. Satisfied? No, not really.

In other words, I think what they're saying has some truth, but I think there's a lot of airbrushing at the edges here.

gore vidal...does that man ever run out of wit? he was on real time w/ bill maher this past weekend, sharp as a tack. worth the watch, if you have the time.

Why wouldn't I be? They've acknowledged there was a problem and are working to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Are people thinking they did it on purpose and are now back-pedaling because of the reaction?

Now can we let this story die?

I still don't get how an error by amazon.fr affected the US amazon website, but not amazon.ca. I'm willing to believe that this mistake contributed to the issue, but it isn't the whole story, I don't think.

On the other hand, I don't believe the overarching mass conpiracy theory. As has been mentioned before, Amazon leans liberal.

Aw, so you mean they still want to turn our kids gay? I thought they had become born-again Christians. Well, at least I can still read Chicks tracts when I go boom-boom.

As someone who has worked in quality assurance at internet companies (*not* including Amazon) for more than 10 years I find their explanation completely believable. Their site is large and probably has a lot of interdependancies. You change one little thing over here and all of a sudden that widget over there gives different results and the connection isn't completely obvious. But is there.

Should someone have caught this before it went live? Ideally. But you will never, ever have a completely bug free website of Amazon's size and scope. You won't. Even great QA departments given plenty of time to test (which *never* happens, there is always a time crunch) won't catch every single bug.

I told you weev was full of shit, as usual.

Gore Vidal just got done with Dingo and the Baby morning show, so he had some time on his hands.

So, yesterday, you found it unbelievable and surprising that Amazon would do this kind of thing, and then today you complain that Amazon is insincere when they explain that they would not intentionally do this kind of thing.

The reason you thought it was unbelievable yesterday, it because it IS unbelievable. Good thing that you caught it and pointed it out to them so that they could fix the problem, but don't go patting yourself on the back for exposing some kind of conspiracy.

Human error. Appropriate response by Amazon.

I am satisfied and I wish everyone would just shut up about it. I first read about this on Sunday, which was Easter. It's Tuesday. I think they reacted quickly and did what they could to take care of it.

As a computer person and a programmer I can see how such an error could have occurred. What I cannot understand is why Amazon is not releasing more details or promising a full report on the matter.

I don't think there's any malicious intent, though, at least not by Amazon top brass. Amazon is a business, and those books are big business, so I cannot see them intentionally slighting a particular group like that.

@Radi0logy: Somehow I think the chick material you're reading is of a rather different flavor :-).

@floraposte: Whaaaat?? Are you implying I would sully my brain with pictures of .. naughty.. bits and pieces?? I take umbrage ma'am.

Seems strange that there's no attempt to respond officially (like on their site or blog), only through these direct customer inquiries. I'm sure they want to avoid making it a bigger issue than it already is, but if it's simply a glitch or translation error, why not clear the air?

OMG teh censershipz!!1!

I think it was a system SNAFU and they've apologized and are fixing it. I'd be stunned to find evidence there was anything intentional here.

Wait a minute: Gore Vidal is still alive?!? I guess he just looks embalmed.

As for the other stuff, the issue was already addressed in public by Amazon before Consumerist even got hold of the story. What's followed is just more detail about an unfortunately widespread database error that caused a massive online overreaction.

The only people that ought to apologize are the ones who stoked the whole #amazonfail brouhaha based on hearsay and wild speculation.

@TinkishDelight: yes, many do think that

@AliyaBabasaur:

Uh, why? What evidence do we have that Amazon, all of a sudden, decided to go homophobe?

Although I've never thought the Amazon top brass were involved in this, I still think someone within the organization (possibly a hacker, but I doubt it) took advantage of a new cataloguing system and/or a weakness in the system to push an agenda.

If it were just a glitch, Amazon wouldn't have been sending out letters about their "new policy" more than a month ago. If it were a mere translation error about the word "adult," then books like Ellen Degeneres' autobiography would not have been affected, but they were. So I think there's more here than Amazon is telling us.

That said, I have no doubt that Amazon is going to bust the asses of absolutely everyone remotely connected to this, and that this was not official policy. I don't think the company has to drag out the guilty for us to pelt; as long as they take care of the situation, I'm good with it.

And the people outraged at people who spoke up missed the boat. This is getting fixed because people spoke up; that is what's most important.

I am not appeased. A "ham-fisted error"? Care to elaborate on that one? Is there even an apology or form of amends to the authors aside from "correcting" the problem? No? Well, I'll be taking my business elsewhere, then. This is what happens when companies get increasingly monopolistic; they fall out-of-touch and basically think they can get away with anything.

@katstermonster: It sounds like it could have been an issue with them trying to categorize books based on regional location, and for whatever reason, rather than doing it regionally... it did it globally.

@Deanna Lidiya: What would you have them do to appease you?

My problem has less to do with the "glitch" (or whatever) than Amazon's slow, confused response to it. They don't seem to understand that this business deeply offended many of their customers and could have had negative economic effects on many authors (you know, the ones who produce the product they markup and sell). Jeff Bezos posted a front page apology on the site when they ran out of Kindles. Surely something more than press flack email is warranted here.

@Griffin Hammond: why would they post it on their website? like it or not 90% of their customers have no idea that this glitch existed, or even care that it did

@HiPwr: How about an actual apology for their "ham-fisted error"? If they don't feel the need to apologize to their consumers for mucking up the searches and references, they could apologize to the authors of the books that got dropped...

@tedyc03: Do you think that those that don't recognize that companies try to avoid leaping into PR disasters would be satisfied with any evidence (no matter how detailed) that Amazon could provide them that this whole fiasco was not based on malice?

Don't look for Gore Vidal to revise his comparison to Nazi Germany comments.

@HiPwr It would be nice to know what really happened, even if they were censoring. Some of this stuff has been going on since February, so it is hard to buy their "Gee, how did that happen? We'll fix it!" spiel. See: [gawker.com]

Then they can apologize and throw us a "We'll never censor again." Is that a lot to ask? I'd rather companies didn't lie, apologized for their mistakes, and promised to do better in the future.

I'm willing to accept this response just in that it'll stop all the internet lawyering happening on every forum across the world wide web.

Um... why WOULDN'T you believe it was the work of a kid who got his Craigslist ads (for chicks who'd do heroin with him) flagged by gays (who like doing meth with hairy guys) and took his revenge by writing ten lines of hacker code and paying people in third-world countries to flag books on Amazon?

I mean, what part of "I got sick of hairy, gay meth addicts flagging my heroin-chick-seeking Craiglist ads so I wrote ten lines of code and paid third-world Internet users to bring down Amazon" DOESN'T make sense to you people?

@jenl1625: Would one apology do, or do they need to make 57,310?

If it wasn't Amazon I'd probably have a bigger problem with it. But I find their site useful for more than just using them to purchase things, they've been solid with me on every order I've made from them, and they're one of a very few internet retailers that actually has a decent history.

So they can get a "my bad" every now and then, as long as they fix the mistake promptly.

@edebaby: The rule on here is that if a story concerns an individual, they are necessarily doe-eyed and innocent; and if the story concerns any company with over five employees, they are necessarily nefarious (even if, as in this case, no one can even decide what they think amazon is guilty of) and oh my god it's 1984.

@unobservant: for me, it was the "and". I never could get a hang of that word.

@Griffin Hammond: because no matter what they say, the people who have their panties in a twist still will think its a conspiracy?

@cmdrsass: Yup. Me three.
Toad-face, I don't expect much from. But considering how many times he's done this, you'd think the media and Web 2.0 blogs who brashly position themselves as smart n savvier than the print media - cough - Gawker - cough - would stop taking the bait.

@edebaby: Try "systemic error of mind-boggling, tone-deaf proportions".
Their approach broke so many rules of launching a new feature that the Internet is too small to hold them all.

@Sam Hawken: That's right: little proles, hush up and keep your place!

@NeverLetMeDown: Yeah that's what I'm wondering. Amazon has always been (what I thought) a very neutral or at least a very fair company. Jeff Bezos has made campaign contributions to several Democrats as well as Republicans. I don't see any evidence to suggest that Amazon the company is politically motivated at all.

@HiPwr: I like your suggestion, but I'd settle for a statement from Bezos personally, carried across a banner on the main page, that reeked of sincerity, regret and a list of things they're changing to ensure it won't happen again.

@Sam Hawken: If he's actually dead, maybe he communicated his quote via the Psychic Friends Network.

@unobservant: Hollywood, are you listening?
I smell Oscar™ Gold!!

@plutonyum: Since when? I've been reading Consumerist for a year, and have not found that to be the case.

@tedyc03: Amazon has the credit card information for the whole world. Do they really want to look like they could make simple but massive mistakes while holding the keys to the bank accounts? They want to minimize this as much as possible to avoid mass hysteria. Right now they just have to convince everyone they like gay people, not that they can still be trusted with your credit cards.

@TinkishDelight: My thought from the beginning was that it was a cataloging change gone awry or something similar. I *did* think their PR people should have gotten out in front of it even faster, but I'm pretty satisfied with the explanation, since amazon has no history of discriminating against gays ... or against adult material generally, for that matter.

Now, if it happens AGAIN, I'll get suspicious. But everybody gets one freebie where we accept your explanation that it was a dumb mistake.

I just want to know: Why, after all these years, does no one seem to notice that the "smile" line and arrow design on Amazons logo, why has no one called them out on the fact that it is a penis??? I mean, seriously, wtf? is it not crude enough?

@zombie_batch:

Okay, now I will never again be able to receive a box from Amazon without giggling.

Amazon's glitch was no accident. It was policy, pure and simple. That bad news is that by trying to sneak it by to placate the the Fundies, they got called out on it.

No accident? Right. Look at Mark Probst's blog. See his communications with Amazon when his book lost its page rank. See Amazon cop to "policy decision".

Nope, AmazonFail is just that. Amazon FubDuck.

No, not satisfied. We're both closing out Amazon accounts and won't do business with them anymore.

A "error" still does not explain the emails that authors got from Amazon telling them that their items were being de-listed on purpose.

Those emails were not a glitch. They were not an error. A hacker didn't do it.

"Cataloging errors" don't write emails and sign them, then send them to affected authors when they inquire about their ranking.

Here is the response author Mark Probst got, according to the Seattle PI:

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.

[blog.seattlepi.com]

[markprobst.livejournal.com]

This round of excuses explains no more than the last round, or the one before that.