Amazon Fails

Although the drama seems to be over, I'm still stunned by the failure of reason in this company. Amazon hasn't yet fully explained--even though they've apologized--how an enormous number of books were deranked and deleted from bestseller lists because of so-called "adult" content. Someone took it upon himself or herself, evidently, to censor books with gay and lesbian content. Swept up in the Kristalnacht purge were books like Lady Chatterly's Lover and other classics. It was stupid, and, as Amazon itself said in an email to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, ham-fisted.

And the conclusion was as dramatic as any I can imagine. The internet became the instrument of an irresistible flood of protest, and Twitter--using #AmazonFail as its byword--exploded with fury. Amazon has apparently been up to these shenanigans for several months, but on Easter Sunday they were forced by this public response to begin reparations.

First Google, now Amazon. I suspect these corporations have just gotten too damn big to think.