Amazon update: Tweets, boycotts and "ham-fisted errors"

After several days of relative silence on the issue, yesterday Amazon issued an updated statement of response to the highly-publicized outcry over the removal of rankings for several thousands of books, many of them gay-authored or gay-themed.

Denying that the development was the result of a hacker attack (even though a hacker had claimed responsibility), the company said that "an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" had resulted in the de-listing, bringing to mind images of a frustrated man with giant pork butts at the ends of his arms unsuccessfully attempting to thumb through the latest Lillian Vernon...

This of course doesn't explain the other glaring issue, which involves the fact that a lot of gay literature is being cataloged as "adult" even though it has no adult content, simply because it is gay-themed. (Cases in point: The bios of John Barrowman and Ellen DeGeneres.)

Image courtesy of Angry Puppy's Lee Waters

In the meantime, boycotts have been called, Twitter has been credited with the storming of the virtual Bastille and the sentiment overall seems to be that Amazon had better be more careful going forward.

Curious: Will you be changing your purchasing habits, or is it a lesson learned for the online giant?