The Department of Justice, much like every other major tech company, has zero love for Google Books’ proposed $125 million class-action lawsuit settlement.
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Amazon says this is a ‘rarity,’ but even once is too many times for bull$*(% like this to happen. … And of course the fact that this happened to 1984, of all books, makes this even more surreal.
Gizmodo writer Adam Frucci • Regarding Amazon’s latest struggle with the Kindle – the fact that they deleted copies of George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” remotely. While it appears to be a rights issue more than anything else (i.e. the publisher didn’t have those rights), the truth of the matter is, Amazon deleted books in the very style that makes them look like Big Brother, which should concern Kindle owners. • source
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.
Andrew Herdener • An Amazon spokesperson on what he calls a “ham-fisted” cataloging error which blocked a bunch of gay-themed books from the main search and pissed off Twitter. In case you didn’t see the headline, Amazon is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, sorry. Really. • source
There was a glitch with our sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed. We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.
Patty Smith • Amazon Director of Corporate Communications, on the reason books were being marked “adult” in the search results. She would not go further into why gay-themed books appeared to be getting pulled more than other books. Currently trending on Twitter are the hashtags #AmazonFail and #glitchmyass, which might hint as to how users may feel about the company’s honesty right now. • source
