Amazon said in a statement that it “believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable.”

The Los Angeles Times gave the details of the story in its Thursday morning edition:

Online retail giant Amazon.com came under a storm of electronic protest Wednesday for selling a self-published electronic book called “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure.”

The title — published Oct. 28 by Phillip R. Greaves — has been flooded with angry criticism mostly aimed at the Seattle-based retailer for offering it for sale.

The controversy raises the question of whether Amazon has any set procedures for vetting books to be sold in its online stores.

Amazon allows writers to publish their own works in its online stores and share in the revenue. The guidebook, described by its author as an “attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles … by establishing certain rules for these adults to follow,” is available for the Amazon Kindle reader.

The book has attracted almost 800 reviews on its Amazon page, with 760 giving it the lowest possible ranking of one star. Many reviewers threatened to boycott the company unless the book is removed.

“There is no excuse for Amazon to be offering this product,” one visitor writes. “I’ve removed my Amazon shop from my website and won’t be doing any Christmas or household shopping through Amazon.com until this product is GONE.”

Amazon does have a set of guidelines which prohibit the listing of some materials, including offensive content, illegal items and educational test solution manuals.

The give no details as to what is included in this in-house policy, but did state to one new outlet: “What we deem offensive is probably what you would expect.”

By late Thursday afternoon, the news broke that Amazon had pulled the book from its website. Here is the CNN Blog report:

The controversial e-book, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure” has been pulled from Amazon.com, a spokesman for the online retailer confirmed Thursday.

The self-published title’s appearance on Amazon.com led to a public uproar and calls for a boycott of the site. As of late Wednesday, more than 2,000 Amazon.com users had left comments on the listing, nearly all of them condemning the site for selling the title.

The e-book’s author, Phillip R. Greaves II, said he published the controversial tome to address what he considers unfair portrayals of pedophiles in the media.

When asked about the controversy, Amazon.com spokesman Drew Herdener would not respond.

In a posting on the FoxNews blog at about the same time, they are quoting the author of the controversial book that he believes Amazon will quickly relist the book:

“The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure” is currently not available on Amazon following calls for a boycott of the online retail giant, but the man who wrote the e-book is confident that it will be back.

Meanwhile, pedophiles who are upset that they can’t buy Phillip Greaves’ e-book will have no trouble finding and purchasing other books that advocate sexual relations with children, an online search reveals.

Greaves, a 47-year-old retired nurse’s aide in Pueblo, Colo., said Thursday that nearly 300 copies of his self-published e-book were sold on Amazon.com’s Kindle Store in the past day, prior to its disappearance from the site. He said he also received more than 3,000 complaints about the $4.79 e-book, which seeks to make “pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them,” according to the product description that was posted while the book was available for sale.

He said he was “very impressed” that Amazon initially stood by its decision to sell the title, and he is now waiting for it to be reviewed by the online retailer.

“They’re re-reviewing it,” said Greaves. (Amazon did not reply to numerous requests for comment on whether it has discontinued selling the e-book and whether it is reviewing its content.)

We suspect that readers of The Aquila Report have already seen the many posts on their Facebook pages guiding individuals on how to submit their protests.

Source Links:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/11/amazon-pedophile-book.html

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/11/update-amazon-confirms-pedophiles-guide-pulled-from-site/

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/11/11/pedophile-guide-author-confident-title-return-amazon/