I'll tell you what I know.

[kyburg]

I've told you. I don't Twit, don't ask me.

Amazon. You know. I know. About what. What I'd like to know is what else got delisted/ It's almost impossible to know at this point what else might have been dumped. How about some other religions? Anyone do a search on Pure Land Buddhism by chance?

Don't bother now. Really. Anyway -

I'm a data geek - how things get to where they need to be for reporting, loading into databases from both sides of the communications method. I have a very good idea about what happened, my own theories and I'm content to wait and see what we will find out from the horse's mouth, if they decide to tell us. They might. They might not. This is what I know, and I deal with this company on a B2B basis.

1. On a holiday weekend, it's unlikely there were many people at the switch. I think this is the work of one or two people, with an equal chance of it being an oops (benefit of the doubt) vs. someone with an agenda. It could have (VERY LIKELY) been going on for some time. Someone complained, someone Did Something and did it over a holiday weekend. Big Bad JuJu.

2. Company does not have a lotof direct contact with people when there are issues - so it's likely they've been notified this was an issue prior, but had it in the queue for repair when everyone discovered the issue and BLEW UP.

3. This is a company that delivers product via a JIT (Just-In-Time) inventory model that can't be beat by anything else out there. They are very good at what they do, which is predict their needs, deliver it on time, anywhere, anything, any time. And they've been doing it over over a decade. But see #2 - they do it with little human contact. All it would have taken is one person with a complaint - and #1 would have had a huge impact in addition to #2.

4. I hope we find out who did this.

5. Amazon fielded it's initial start-up tech staff from WalMart. Please look surprised.

6. I've never used sales rankings to find something, directly within Amazon. I might trawl a bit after an initial hit (NPR recommends something - I find it there, maybe over at Abebooks.com and then oh, this is related? And that? Interesting...and there you go), so I hadn't noticed. Check my wish list - and if I hadn't noticed? And did not use the sales rankings to find most of the items? Right.

I'm sure this is going to get much more interesting before it's over. But if this was intentional, belive me - some groups would be chortling and taking credit for it. Be right proud of themselves, neh?

It's a - not to point too fine a point on it - boner.

Comments

[audacian.livejournal.com]

This guy admitted to doing it: http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html

Its plausible; he's a pretty well-known hacker.

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

Just because someone admits to doing it does not mean they are actually the ones who did it.

Case in point: bombings in various locations - how many groups will come forward and 'claim' responsibility?

[audacian.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. I'm not claiming I believe him, hence the "It's plausible" part.

[kshandra]

And this guy has debunked that pretty thoroughly.

[audacian.livejournal.com]

The comments seem to debate that. Again, I'm not claiming I agree he did it, but nobody knows for sure.

[kshandra]

Most of that discussion happened after the last time I'd looked at that link. D'oh. ;-)

[audacian.livejournal.com]

Haha, its all over my head, anyway.

I think I'm just hoping it wasn't the work of Amazon (or perhaps was the result of poor code-infrastructure?) because I really, really like Amazon Prime.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Debunked here: http://tinyurl.com/dxc5w7

[kshandra]

It could have (VERY LIKELY) been going on for some time.

February is the most commonly referenced point on this; I didn't catch where, as this has hit drink-from-the-firehose status already, but earlier this morning I saw a link to a post dated August 2008.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Amazon's sole response so far that I can find:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6651080.html

There are some reports of this issue going back as far as February, but I haven't bothered to research how reliable they are.

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I knew it had to be some sort of bug.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Excellent appraisal. I figured it had to be some sort of 'hornets nest' hack- even with their apparent human contact firewall, Amazon isn't going to willingly alienate their customer base- especially in the speed-of-light online world.

The hacker(s) used this against them, adding the holiday weekend to the mix just fanned the flames. Twitter served as the gasoline.

I just hope that Amazon can do some damage control, and soon- I'm already seeing posts on how to delete Amazon accounts.

"Fail" indeed...

[drlaurac.livejournal.com]

I am happy as all heck to hear that Amazon says this was a "glitch." I sent them a concerned e-mail this morning, and I am happy that this is not a new policy, and will be happier to continue spending my money there.

[catsonmars.livejournal.com]

I'm not all bunched up over this. There are plenty of fag-hating companies out there, and Amazon is just plain not one of them.

Basically, from what I understood, this is a script and a filter set a little too aggressively. While it's a very interesting thing to happen - and definitely something to watch - I'm just plain short on outrage over it.

We shall see what happens next, though. :3

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It would appear my original guess was pretty close - a programming blunder, French language-related no less (>_<) - and hit other catagories besides the one everyone is talking about (surprise, and I called that one).

It happens. Believe me. Job security and all that.