More Trouble for Amazon - Videos of Under-Age Girls: Report
Jeff Bezos may have had rougher weeks during his career as chief executive of Amazon.com. It's just hard to recall when.
On Thursday, the company was inundated with a wave of complaints and boycott threats after the disclosure that it was selling "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct," an e-book written for pedophiles on its Kindle store.
But that isn't the end of it. MSNBC's Wilson Rothman is reporting that Amazon has been selling "books and videos depicting pre-pubescent Eastern European and Asian girls, some of whom are nude" in the U.S. and Japan.
"Nudist videos from Eastern Europe appear on the U.S. Amazon retail site; meanwhile, books and videos that feature scantily clad pre-pubescent Eastern European and Asian girls, specifically stated by an independent website as being between the ages of 11 and 17, are listed on Amazon properties in Japan and elsewhere.."The availability of the book on its site raised questions about whether Amazon has procedures to vet books before they wind up for sale in its online stores. Although Amazon has a ban against certain materials, including those deemed offensive, it doesn't elaborate on what constitutes offensive content, saying simply that it is "probably what you would expect." Authors are allowed to submit their own works and there is a revenue split between the writers and Amazon.
In 2002, the United States Justice Foundation, a conservative group, threatened to sue Amazon for selling "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers." That title is still available through Amazon. In 2009, Amazon stopped selling "RapeLay," a first-person video game in which the protagonist stalks and then rapes a mother and her daughters, after it was widely condemned in the media and by various interest groups. The author of "The Pedophile's Guide," listed as Philip R. Greaves II, still has other titles sold through Amazon.
A spokesman for Amazon was not immediately available for comment on the MSNBC report.