In this case, bad publicity has caused Amazon to make a shift far faster than any organization, government or otherwise, could possibly do.

Perhaps I should add “NGSO”, that is Non-Governmental Self-Organization such as Twitter.

If you really want to know what a company does, you read the part of their 10-K (annual filing with the SEC) that deals with risk factors–where their business can break down.

My experience is that many of the worst systems problems are simply never anticipated until they happen. Or at least, if they are anticipated, it’s by worker bees in the systems department, and covered up by systems (middle) management so the people at the top don’t even know there’s a risk until something like this happens.

See also my response to your post at Almost Diamonds.

The real control is whoever owns the patent for the online “Shopping Cart” software.

Me too! Me too! But then, I am also looking forward to writing about this as well. Unfortunately, I am not sure when I will – probably when I have a break in a couple weeks – between this and the summer term. You seem to come up with some of the best discussions that seemingly should be more clear cut, yet aren’t. (I am also looking forward to actually writing a post that was in parts inspired by your discussion of your former student “john” (who shall remain that in my post, because I’ll be linking yours) and the recent discussion of Pro-Test.)

As far as the topic at hand, I am not sure I entirely agree with the utility analogy. Yet the more I think on it, the more I suspect that it’s really not far from the mark. More importantly, I think that the same applies to several other entities – Google and Wal-Mart coming to mind. Unfortunately, after around twelve hours of driving yesterday – not getting home until nearly one, then talking to the absolute greatest women in the world until almost two (when I just called to let her know I made it home safe) and then making it to class this morning and all day – my brain has gone rather melty.

I do think that a reasonable direction to go – even though it turns out this was probably a technical glitch – would be (as I mentioned at Stephanie’s) to allow organizations and even individuals to create their own Amazon portals that could restrict content as they please. Then Amazon as Amazon could be left wide open, for those of us who aren’t afraid of Teh Sex or Teh Gay or other dangerous things and ideas…I mean hell, it’s easy enough for anyone to put an Amazon link on their site and get a piece whenever people use that link and buy shit. Why not take it a little further and allow folks to do more with that portal?

This is not to say that I support content restrictions, but better for folks to do it with their own portal, than do it to all of us. And it’s unlikely that people who want to restrict the content their family’s or the people in their group are going to stop wanting such restrictions anytime soon. That being a given assumption, I would much rather see them take their restrictions into their own little corner, where it won’t restrict me or mine.

Meanwhile, I’ll be here in my corner, not trying to hide dangerous books like, “How to be a hateful fucking bigot and make others that way too” from my children – nor religious claptrap either. I want my kids armed and ready to confront these ideas and the impact they will have on their lives. Nor do I want to hide Teh Sex or drugs from them either. I am again, very keen on ensuring they are prepared for what life will inevitably throw at them. But while I will admit to having no respect whatever, for people who want to insulate their children to the point of suffocating them – I respect their right to do so.

Is Target a minor player? No. Amazon is the on line service that sells Target merchandise. And for other companies as well. They are not a minor player in non-book merchandise. This is not about books.

I for one am looking forward to Stephanie’s post on pages 9-12.

In this case, bad publicity has caused Amazon to make a shift far faster than any organization, government or otherwise, could possibly do.

Actually, for books, they almost did. In particular, there was always the threat that if B&N didn’t like your book, it wouldn’t sell, or might not even get published. This was a particular problem for the types of books under discussion now, but hardly limited to that. The rise of the chain superstore was a huge issue in the publishing world. A small number of buyers were inordinately influential.

And Amazon does not control the country’s supply chain. They’re still a minor player in non-media products.

But to trust the government to manage this interest? The same government that got us into the Iraq mess when anybody familiar with the Middle East who’d lived in a rough neighborhood could have known that Saddam was probably bluffing? The same government whose IRS spent almost a decade with a worthless computer system? The same government most of whose agencies have even more worthless computer systems than huge corporations? Both the government and the majority of large corporations have an execrable track record when it comes to large systems projects. The government (overall) has an execrable record representing the interests of society. (Yeah, I know Obama’s your boy, but have you noticed how often he does the same thing Bush would have, and its not even three months into his term?)

IMO there are several problems brought up here. A corporation, unlike a government agency, can make policy changes with nobody reviewing those changes concerning the “public interest”. This is not and (IMO) should not be a government function, but rather the same NGO’s that review the policy changes of government agencies perhaps should have a role with major corporations.

Any corporation (or individual) can publish a business policy, get customers, employees, vendors, and stockholders depending on that policy, then change it in a wink of an eye, setting them all in turmoil, with only the stockholders having recourse. This needs to be fixed. It is already being addressed for privacy policies, but the policies being discussed here aren’t yet in play. Perhaps this incident will help.

Before any other libertarians here (if any) go after me, I’ll point out that compulsion isn’t necessary. If the government (or some central NGO) sets up an agency to be a counterparty to an agreement over policy, then companies (or individuals) who want to commit to a business policy can make a binding contract with this agency and then will not be able to change the policy without allowing the agency to review the changes with all stakeholders (as defined in either law or the specific contract). Businesses that don’t want to commit to such policies would be free not to, but customers, employees, vendors, and even stockholders would know that they didn’t really mean it, and could act accordingly.