Amazon Does Not Discriminate Against Political Parties, But Does...

...discriminate against sensible shoppers. Amazon does. They didn't last year, but they do now, and that's why I can't find any of the reviews I posted last year and why the publisher didn't send me any more shiny new books to review.

After last week's post about how well matched the numbers looked for Republicans' and Democrats' popular (and less popular) books on Amazon...

http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2017/09/does-amazon-censor-book-reviews-for.html

...I received an e-mail asking for links to my reviews. I dug up a few and tested them. None of them worked any more. I e-mailed Amazon to ask what had happened. This morning, Amazon replied. The reply went out with a smarmy Orwellian heading that looked like an ad and almost got deleted as I checked this web site's group account, which is also our Amazon Associate account, for something that should have been clearly identified as a response to a complaint.

I didn't copy the text of the reply; basically, it said that Amazon's new policy was to display reviews only after customers had spent $50 with a credit card.

Here's what I e-mailed back:

"
Last year I bought several books from Amazon; I wrote informative reviews, and a publisher sent me several more books for review purposes. Recently someone asked about my reviews. I clicked the links in the e-mails showing where four of them had been posted. They had disappeared. I asked what had happened to them, and was told that the new policy was to accept reviews only from people who'd purchased things with a credit card.

I've never used a credit card, and I never intend to use one. I saw how much trouble they got other students into and burned the "free trial" offers I got in college! Online, any direct use of any bank information, even debit cards, invites even more trouble--fraud, and potentially espionage and terrorism (since this information enables identity thieves). I've bought things from Amazon using giftcards; I would have bought more if Amazon had worked with Paypal to accept fully anonymized payments that trace back to Paypal's company account rather than an individual's bank account.

Although online information about me is information about a registered business not an individual, I'm real. So are my purchases and reviews. I don't like seeing reviews I took the trouble to write for you, free of charge, discriminated against because I've followed FBI recommendations to protect my identity.

You need to base your business on giftcards that can be sold for cash in real stores, and/or fully anonymized Paypal payments that trace back to Paypal's company account rather than any individual's bank account, and/or real money orders sent through real mail. Even debit cards, which are safer for individuals in real life, should never be used online.

And actually, although I think (without checking) my Amazon purchases add up to more than $50...don't you find that people who've bought only one one-cent book are more likely to buy other things when they see their reviews go live? I thought that was one of the secrets of Amazon's success.
"

Gentle Readers, all of us need to stand firm with businesses that may have bought into some sort of lucrative deal with greedhead credit card companies. Customers rule...and customers should destroy any credit cards they may own, before their credit information is stolen and used to help somebody hijack a plane!

Yes, it's ironic that this is going on at what claims to be "America's most customer-centric company," and it's even more ironic that it started during the week of September 11...



We have the best armed forces and the best civil defense forces on Earth...but no country will ever be secure enough that its citizens can afford to post their identity and bank information on the Internet. That's like setting fire to your house just to watch the firefighters at work.