Last week, outraged online shoppers threatened to boycott Amazon.com for carrying Phillip R. Greaves’s self-published ebook, The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct. In fewer than 24 hours, the retailer had pulled the book from its virtual shelves. The decision to do so, however, was largely a financial, as opposed to moral, one. Regardless, the incident is a remarkable demonstration of the power consumers can exercise over brands. Did angry virtual mobs bully Amazon into violating the First Amendment?
At first, Amazon defended itself, calling this an issue of expression that it would not censor. But just a little public pressure caused the largest online retailer to abandon its principles. Yet Amazon’s history indicates that it doesn’t apply this principle evenly. If you remember, last year Amazon removed literature with GLBT themes — but brought them back when consumers responded.
Amazon probably profited more while the book was in stock: Selling for $4.97, the title jumped into the top-100 list and carried more than 900 reviews. Usually, those kinds of stats are positives.
Facing a potential boycott, Amazon came to the rational conclusion it should give the people what they wanted and withdraw the book from sale. Discontinuing the ebook may or may not have been the right decision, but either way, the lesson to Amazon is that it’s not the almighty retailer it thought it was. It took no time at all for the public outcry to grow so loud that the company was more or less forced to agree to the public’s conditions. It goes to show: armed with the internet and opinions, the consumer can fell a giant.
CREDIT: RACHEL KRAMER BRUSSEL /flickr.com
