A friend clued me in to this rather disturbing info:
Those of you who’ve bought from amazon in the past, or care about GLBT issues, or censorship in general, might be interested to learn that recently Amazon has begun de-ranking and de-listing books, films, etc., that have gay-themed content. Their stated policy is that they are de-ranking “adult” content, but a few quick searches proves this to be BS. For example, while Playboy’s “Wet and Wild Complete Collection” still has an Amazon sales ranking (
http://www.amazon.com/Play
boy-Wet-Wild-Complete-Collection/dp/B000FUF7FS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1239567166&sr=8-1), the Booker-prize nominated novel “The Folding Star” by Alan Hollinghurst is no longer ranked (
http://www.amazon.com/Fold
ing-Star-Novel-Alan-Hollinghurst/dp/1596910038/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239566887&sr=1-4).
If you feel like it, you might send an email to their customer service representatives expressing your feelings on this; the email is ecr@amazon.com
More info can be found here:
http://markprobst.livejour
nal.com/15293.html
http://dearauthor.com/word
press/2009/04/12/amazon-censors-its-rankings-search-results-to-protect-us-against-glbt-books/#more-11455
