Reaping what they have sown.

[flewellyn]

As many of you already know, Amazon.com has decided to "show consideration" for their "entire customer base" by delisting the sales rankings of GLBT-friendly books. They have not seen fit to do the same with anti-GLBT books, however, and as a result, Searching for "homosexuality" links to a series of homophobic books by right-wing fundamentalists.

In light of this, I sent this letter to Amazon.com moments ago:

I wish my account closed, effective immediately, in protest of your policies against GLBT content. I object in the strongest possible terms to this discriminatory behavior, and refuse to do any further business with you until such time as you cease such promotion of bigotry.

Sincerely,
[my name]

I would encourage all of you who read me, and have not already done so, to do the same.

Comments

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I think Amazon got trolled, frankly.

I'm interested to see how they respond as the week progresses.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

I'm as offended by this as the next decent person, but I don't really see the point of closing my account immediately when, what with all the outrage, they might reverse all this fairly soon, at which point I'd have to start a new account and would have lost my order history, personal ratings, many preprogrammed addresses, and a couple hundred bucks in gift certificates.

[erica057.livejournal.com]

You can still email them and tell them that you are unhappy with their new policy and you will be boycotting until they reverse it. I don't think it's necessary to delete your account if you're absolutely opposed to it.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

I have done, although I'll still be using my existing gift certificate money. (Since they've already been paid for it, not doing so would just be letting them get away with accepting payment without having to give me goods in exchange.)

[erica057.livejournal.com]

I agree with that. Suggestions for spending your GCs ;)

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

If they fix it, Amazon can tell me so and not close my account.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

They very well might not, considering that you didn't say that your instruction to close your account was conditional.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Even if they do, I can have them reinstate it later.

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

Very possibly not:

Once your account is closed, it is no longer accessible by you or anyone else. Please note that if you have an Associates account, About You area, or Wish List, you will no longer have access to your account for these purposes either.

If you ever wanted to order from us again or take advantage of any other features of our store that require a password, you would need to start a new account.

[minkrose]

This is actually strike two on their part, to me. I started boycotting them back in June 2008 when this bullshit happened.

I still have an account because I wanted to keep my wishlist around but I'm seriously considering closing it. My only reason to keep it is that I love Endless.com.

I haven't actually missed them AT ALL in the year I've ALREADY not been buying from them. They clearly want to throw around their weight in ways that I don't agree with. I've been perfectly happy with B&N and have made more of an effort to buy through my local bookstores. I figure the local stores really need my business right now and Amazon clearly doesn't care for it.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[idemandjustice.livejournal.com]

I'm going to contact them and remind them how long I've been a customer, and remind them that I've forgiven them for abuse against me personally in the past, but that this won't fly, and until they fix it, I'll be making all of my purchases elsewhere.

[erica057.livejournal.com]

Yep, I emailed them pretty much the same thing.

What a dumb move. Who buys more books from Amazon, fundies or web-savvy liberal types??

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

No kidding! That should be obvious!

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

I'm more and more convinced that this was a a mistake. An epic mistake, but a mistake all the same. I think that we all were a little too abrupt in rushing toward Amazon with torches and pitchforks.

[triplemare.livejournal.com]

Sent an email last night.
Had conciliatory "but we fixed it" whine-gram in mail this morning.
Double checked to see if they had.
Nope.
Fail.
I totaled up what I spent with them over the past year (alone) -- keeping in mind that I buy lots and lots and lots of books and gifts and and and...Then I sent them a note with that amount listed and saidk "no mo' for you, you lying lying people you"
Overall, my withholding those dollar contribs are not going to make or break them. But if I am just a sample...
Glee!

[nimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I somehow doubt this is going to greatly affect Amazon's bottom line. No more than Wal*Mart's has been affected by their own sins, which are legion and which a lot of people routinely claim to boycott but usually don't.

[foma44.livejournal.com]

ew.

amazon. is kinda the devil of the bookselling world for a few reasons now...

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

Excellent idea.

[hypatiasghost.livejournal.com]

I'm waiting for more information. I think it's suspicious that a company whose search engine brings up vaginal speculums when you search for girl scout cookies suddenly delisted GLBT books. Something strange is afoot, and Amazon may not be entirely to blame.

That's not to say I won't be closing my account in protest. But I will be waiting until we actually understand what happened.

[typsie.livejournal.com]

You might want to see this: http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

BZZT! Wrong, but thanks for playing!

http://bryant.livejournal.com/672165.html

[typsie.livejournal.com]

Not sure I believe that guy any more than Weev. Not sure what to believe, but I really don't think this was Amazon's doing.

[xuincherguixe.livejournal.com]

Well, a recent search seems to get hits on gay sex, general living, and hate against them. So I'm going to guess that either it was technical issues, or the backlash was so great that they're pretending it was technical issues.