Amazon had a bad weekend

Amazon seems to have jumped head first into the crapper again (remember this?).

I’m a bit wary to step into things like this myself, given the way common sense and empathy for one’s fellow man sometimes flies out of the window when anger, righteous or not, is involved. But when I found out about this yesterday afternoon, I spent some time searching out a number of blogs, tweets, articles, and whatever else I could find to try to figure out for myself what was really going on here (you can find a few of them at the bottom on this post, and they explain the situation in more detail, if you don’t already know).

It’s not unthinkable for this to have been something intentional on Amazon’s part—companies, governments, and even plain old individuals have done a lot worse in recent years—but I wanted to be sure as far as I could be with what’s available, and as far as I understand it right now. On one hand, it does seem odd that such a visible company would want to do something so asinine on purpose, and so swiftly, unless by some bizarre chance they were hoping that in these trying economic times the media exposure would boost their sales at some point. Even though it would be highly unlikely for them to do that, the exposure after they’ve had a few high- or low-ranking employees go through media channels to issue the standard and remixed apologies is certainly more likely to help their sales in the near future than it is to harm them, at least if they get this fixed soon.

If what they’ve said so far is true, it appears that Amazon really needs to understand how this tech thing works well enough to fix a systems glitch within a matter of hours, or within a day or two, of when it happens (if it is actually a glitch). A company like that shouldn’t come across as if they’re new to the big bad world of technology and are flying blind when it comes to security. With viruses like Conflciker (isn’t that thing still on the loose?) and whatever else persons more skilled in the tech-speak can come up with, you’d think a company with as much to lose, and with as deep pockets, as Amazon would protect their systems like most people would protect their kids.

Secondly, if this debacle is an internal glitch, shouldn’t it be easier to correct? And a glitch from what, exactly? Given the fact that at least one or two GLBT books have been getting de-ranked on Amazon since February, what kind of a glitch could it be? Maybe somebody testing the system in order to create just this kind of thing, just this kind of media circus? Or maybe a discriminatory policy Amazon put in place and tried to execute steadily and quietly, and it somehow backfired, maybe because an angry employee decided to expose what was going on in the underbelly? Or it could be that somebody got lazy, or forgot to do something important while waiting for the holiday weekend. So far, what Amazon is doing, and their explanations—as far as the public can see and what individuals have experienced—don’t lend them much credibility right now.

Whatever the case may be, they have no choice but to fix it as soon as they possibly can. Amazon’s no worse or better than any company that rolls in millions to billions of dollars of revenue a year. They do their part for the whole, just like any other organism. If they’re going to claim to be one of the world’s largest e-sellers, where you can find almost anything, why screw it up by excluding anyone? If those that operate a company are going to care more about their bottom line than the public either way (come on, how many outside of a hand full or two of the large corporations actually care?) then they might as well NOT discriminate based on the fact that money is money regardless. It’s not at all the best way to do things and such a policy has its own unique set of pitfalls, but–as far as helping to maintain a somewhat civilized society goes at this point in time–it works, and in the end almost everybody wins, almost everybody’s happy.

(Of course, it would be nice for some, too, if this, and the other recent events, spelled the beginning of the end for the online giant, and it paved the way for some of the smaller, versatile, people-friendly companies.)

More and more, people that actually do give a damn about the rights and privileges of others are using the same tactics that have been used in the past by less caring and more discriminatory groups to get what they want. And on one level, that can be a good thing. It forces those at the pinnacle of power to understand that just because people don’t have money or a lot of power, individually, doesn’t mean they can be discounted. It forces companies that become outdated in their methods to realize that they have to adapt to the changes in technology and to the expansion that’s happening in the way societies and individuals view each other and the world. People have the power to galvanize others, or to go forward alone, and to change the negative ways in which any given system works.

But on the other hand, power also doesn’t discriminate in how it corrupts. Just because someone, or a group, starts out with a noble cause doesn’t mean that they’re immune to the “knee-jerk” reactions inherent in our human nature, or to the charismatic power mongers that use that aspect of human nature for their own personal gain. It also doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for things to spiral out of control based on the actions and reactions of those that have good intentions.

At any rate, whatever the reason, Amazon needs to correct this problem that has disenfranchised an entire group of people for no particular good reason, and I, for one, hope they do it soon. The longer something like this goes on, the more damage is done overall.

Links to a couple of informative blog posts among the plethoric list of interesting blogs and posts, which also contain links to others and etcetera:

http://mikedaisey.com/

http://blog.seattlepi.com/amazon/archives/166329.asp

http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/176022.html

http://scienceblogs.com/ethicsandscience/2009/04/some_thoughts_on_amazonfail.php

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/14/amazon-hacking-piracy