Online retail giant [a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"]Amazon[/a] has been forced to defend itself amid allegations that it deliberately censored site listings referencing gay and lesbian themed literature.
Many suspected that the removal of thousands of books from its listings at the weekend was a deliberate manoeuvre on the part of the company. Amazon has protested its innocence.
Amazon's ranking system is used to recommend books to customers based on previous selling success. The online giant said the removal of items was not isolated to the content that caused the uproar and, more so, was the result of a cataloging bug rather than a ban.
"This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection," Amazon said in a statement issued to IT PRO.
"It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search."
The statement continued: "Many books have now been fixed and we're in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future."
The problem was global and a very publicly embarrassing one for the retailer which prides itself on its online community and ranking system.
Micro blogging phenomenon Twitter was also gripped by speculation and chatter about Amazon's antics, with many twitters marking updates with the tag [a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23amazonfail" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"]#Amazonfail[/a]. This hash tag means other users can quickly and easily see all tweets referencing that topic at a glance.
Meanwhile an online [a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow"]petition against the move[/a] is gathering pace online. Those signing up are alleging that the issue is part of a new adult policy' rather than an error. At the time of writing, the petition had more than 20,000 signatures.
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