Amazon

AP report:

Amazon.com is selling a self-published guide that offers advice to paedophiles, and that has generated outrage on the internet and threats to boycott the retailer.

The availability of “The Paedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct” calls into question whether Amazon has any procedures – or even an obligation – to vet books before they are sold in its online stores. Amazon did not respond to multiple email and phone messages.

The title is an electronic book available for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and the company’s software for reading Kindle books on mobile phones and computers. Amazon allows authors to submit their own works and shares revenue with them.

Amazon have not now removed the book from sale, and that is a prudent move. But people go too far in demanding that Amazon should somehow vet books before they sell them. This would destroy the economics of online selling. Amazon has millions of titles. They would have to hire around 1,000 staff to do nothing but read books if they were to be held liable for them.

Certainly once a complaint is received, they should act swiftly to verify it is breaks any laws, or policies. But don’t start demanding they vet material in advance from authors.