Amazon's games at their best

[lovecraft68]

Interesting blog post here from Ellora's Cave.

The charge of violating 1st amendment rights is inaccurate, but what is worth noting is their talking about how amazon manipulates their search functions to play hide and seek with erotica and indy authors in general.

http://missprimm.com/elloras-cave-e-book-sales-a-cautionary-first-amendment-tale/

 

[Beatnic_jazzman]

This bit is disturbing if it's true:

Anarchy, avoid any publisher that REQUIRES you to use their online editor…and don’t use the feature on any site that offers it but doesn't require it. The fine print on that one, which they don’t tell you in their TOS, is that if you use their online editor FOR ANYTHING, they can confiscate it and use it themselves. Writing it on their server makes it their intellectual property, and you automatically waive ALL rights to it, permanently. That’s illegal…but since Microsoft managed to get away with it, everyone else has been pushing the boundaries, too. And so far no one has managed to legally force them to stop.

 

[StrangeLife]

Interesting blog post here from Ellora's Cave.

The charge of violating 1st amendment rights is inaccurate, but what is worth noting is their talking about how amazon manipulates their search functions to play hide and seek with erotica and indy authors in general.

http://missprimm.com/elloras-cave-e-book-sales-a-cautionary-first-amendment-tale/

If I was the Devils advocate, I would note that all businesses are using similar tricks to increase their profit.

For instance the supermarket will place stuff that most people need often, like dairy products, in the very back of the store so you have to walk past as many shelves as possible in order to get it, and of course the candy is placed near the cash register so people who are waiting in line with their kids will be tempted to buy some. Not to mention the "artificial fresh-baked bread smell" that is sprayed out at the bakery section and the special lamp over the banana basket with light in a color that make them seem more yellow and fresh.

It's not a new thing either. When I was a student I had a part time job in a radio/TV store, and there was always certain brands or models that we were told to recommend to customers - either because we had too many in stock or because the margin was higher on them.

I know it sucks that Amazon is stacking the deck to their own advantage, but from a business ethics point of view they aren't really doing anything wrong....

 

[sr71plt]

This bit is disturbing if it's true:

That there quote is a bunch of hooey. For one thing, all legitimate publishers insist on their own editors (at the publisher's expense) editing whatever they publish. That they have special ownership of anything their own editors edit is also a bunch of barf.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

That there quote is a bunch of hooey. For one thing, all legitimate publishers insist on their own editors (at the publisher's expense) editing whatever they publish. That they have special ownership of anything their own editors edit is also a bunch of barf.

I don't think he talking about a live editor, but a piece of software running on the server.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't think he talking about a live editor, but a piece of software running on the server.

Ah, so. OK.

 

[redzinger]

Is this twitter discussion a load of rubbish then or is there something in it?

https://twitter.com/tejasjulia/status/506916695668051968