# This needs to stop happening



## Abderian (Apr 5, 2012)

A mother has demanded Amazon take action after her 12 year old daughter found erotica from by typing "free Kindle books for teenagers" into the search.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34258918

I've posted here before about my son also stumbling across this stuff. Is it the writers' fault for the keywords they use? It makes me so frustrated. Surely Amazon can do something to stop this from happening.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Some authors do miscategorize their work, but Amazon could take care of most of the "stumbling" problems with a safe search feature. You'll have to take it up with them. They could, but they don't.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

I don't understand why it is so hard for Amazon to put an adult content filter that readers (or parents) can choose to toggle. That way, the readers who are looking for erotica can find it, the readers who absolutely do not want to find it can be assured that they won't accidentally stumble upon it, and authors don't have to worry about getting thrown in the "erotica dungeon" where hardly anyone (including their target audience) will ever find them.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

As an erotica writer I can tell I have a story come up right next to a book about educating fourth graders. I have my book classified right and use only keywords pertaining to my book. However, Amazon does not adult filter erotica unless the cover is pushing the limits, so a generic search will pull it up along with books on education, cooking and whatever else you can name. It doesn't always have anything to do with the writer being sneaky. In my opinion Amazon should put erotica books in its own search so you have to click a button or something to see erotica. It wouldn't really hurt the writers because anyone searching for it would still find it, but those who aren't searching wouldn't. Now, if the erotica book was miscategorized that's on the author, so it depends.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

It's not perfect, but I've started using negative keywords when searching on Amazon for books. It's the only (partly) reliable way to find what I want to read without tons of erotica titles showing up.

I add -erotic and -romance to my search criteria and it's helped. I don't expect a kid to know that, though, so I do hope Amazon can come up with some sort of safe search function. Erotica titles have sprung up like weeds in pretty much every category I've seen.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Countdown to the next pornpocalypse in three...two...


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

It's up to parents to monitor their children.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Dragovian said:


> Countdown to the next pornpocalypse in three...two...


See, if they would put in an adult filter, like Smashwords or Deviantart, there wouldn't have to be a pornpocalypse. Those who don't want to see it wouldn't have to, and those who are looking for it could find it just fine. This really does seem to be an area where Amazon is failing their customers.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


Wouldn't that be nice? But that's much more personal responsibility than demanding the world be made child safe.

On the other hand, a safe search option wouldn't exactly kill Amazon to implement.



Joe Vasicek said:


> See, if they would put in an adult filter, like Smashwords or Deviantart, there wouldn't have to be a pornpocalypse. Those who don't want to see it wouldn't have to, and those who are looking for it could find it just fine. This really does seem to be an area where Amazon is failing their customers.


Or, you know, what Joe said while I was typing.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Dragovian said:


> Countdown to the next pornpocalypse in three...two...


Well, it's about overdue. They have them around September every year, but not for this. They've always known erotica shows up in other searches and they don't care. They make more money that way.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


So your positon is that Amazon is not safe for children, and that it's up to parents to restrict their access?


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## katherinef (Dec 13, 2012)

Oh no, another kid let loose on Amazon. At least Amazon makes it easier for teens to explain how forbidden content "accidentally" got onto their phones and computers.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


THIS.

Amazon is not your babysitter.

It's a big, bad world out there. If you want to protect your precious child from porn, keep them off the Internet, because there's porn all over it. All your child has to do is a Google search.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Joe Vasicek said:


> See, if they would put in an adult filter, like Smashwords or Deviantart, there wouldn't have to be a pornpocalypse. Those who don't want to see it wouldn't have to, and those who are looking for it could find it just fine. This really does seem to be an area where Amazon is failing their customers.


Yep. And the erotica writers who aren't doing anything wrong wouldn't keep getting complaints. It's a win-win


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> So your positon is that Amazon is not safe for children, and that it's up to parents to restrict their access?


My position is that nothing in this world is going to bend to any one person's personal morality, and any attempts at trying will lead to something worse than what we have. If parents are worried about what children may see, then parents should be monitoring their children. It is 100 percent impossible to filter out whatever bad stuff a parent might not like.


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## WordNinja (Jun 26, 2014)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


Parents should certainly be monitoring their kids' Internet use and educating them about things they might find online that are inappropriate for them. 12-year-olds know about sex. It's not such a leap to have this discussion with them.

I'd be less worried about a 12-year-old than a 15-year old, who might be more than happy to stumble across the stuff.

I don't want people under 18 reading my books, but there's not much I can do about it. Amazon needs a safe-search feature. If they want to sell material for mature audiences (and I'm glad they do), then they have an obligation to do way more than they're currently doing to keep it out of the hands of minors.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> THIS.
> 
> Amazon is not your babysitter.
> 
> It's a big, bad world out there. If you want to protect your precious child from porn, keep them off the Internet, because there's porn all over it. All your child has to do is a Google search.


In principle, I tend to agree with you. The sole responsibility for raising children is with the parents.

That said, it wouldn't exactly kill Amazon to help out by implementing an adult filter. Google has been refining theirs, and it's actually pretty good at getting rid of the porn now (I often use Google Image Search as a helpful research tool when writing descriptions).

The internet doesn't have to be a big, dark, scary forest full of wolves. Parts of it are always going to be like that, but other parts can be cultivated into much more family-friendly spaces. It doesn't have to be a binary "if you don't want your kids watching porn, don't let them onto the internet" kind of decision.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

I'll also say that nothing a 12 year old sees for sale on Amazon will scar them for life. But you know what might scar them for life? Making them the center of a media storm because they saw the cover of a naughty book.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Andrea @ ArtWellPub said:


> Parents should certainly be monitoring their kids' Internet use and educating them about things they might find online that are inappropriate for them. 12-year-olds know about sex. It's not such a leap to have this discussion with them.
> 
> I'd be less worried about a 12-year-old than a 15-year old, who might be more than happy to stumble across the stuff.
> 
> I don't want people under 18 reading my books, but there's not much I can do about it. Amazon needs a safe-search feature. If they want to sell material for mature audiences (and I'm glad they do), then they have an obligation to do way more than they're currently doing to keep it out of the hands of minors.


Yeah, you stick it in erotica and the age range button below automatically goes to age eighteen +. After that it's pretty much out of your hands, though I do always put a warning in mine reminding readers it's for legal adults only.


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

This is an outrage. Kids shouldn't have access to erotica on the internet. They should have to get hand-me-down Playboys from their friends' big brothers like we had to do back in my day. Toughens them up. Gives them an appreciation for it they'll never get if they find it willy nilly on the net.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

When I was a little girl, say 8 or 9, my parents failed to turn on the adult filter to their boxes of books stored in the basement and I found Henry Miller and DH Lawrence books and was warped permanently as a result.  Not to mention copies of my father's (rather tame by today;s standards) Playboy. I could never figure out why ladies liked to pose naked whilst sprawling on rocks and beaches...


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Sela said:


> When I was a little girl, say 8 or 9, my parents failed to turn on the adult filter to their boxes of books stored in the basement and I found Henry Miller and DH Lawrence books and was warped permanently as a result.


Psh, I swear preteens are the ones writing all the Justin Bieber and One Direction erotic fan fiction. Who else would bother?


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

Briteka said:


> Psh, I swear preteens are the ones writing all the Justin Bieber and One Direction erotic fan fiction. Who else would bother?


I hava a confession. I'm a slave to the Bieb.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

vrabinec said:


> This is an outrage. Kids shouldn't have access to erotica on the internet. They should have to get hand-me-down Playboys from their friends' big brothers like we had to do back in my day. Toughens them up. Gives them an appreciation for it they'll never get if they find it willy nilly on the net.


I know right? When I was thirteen I had to crawl under my parent's bed and pull out a cardboard box, praying the whole time I didn't get caught, to find the good stuff.


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

How times change. When I was that age I just went through my parents' copy of The Joy of Sex. Hiding it in a suitcase in the basement? Pfft. I can't believe I just accidentally stumbled across it like that.


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> See, if they would put in an adult filter, like Smashwords or Deviantart, there wouldn't have to be a pornpocalypse. Those who don't want to see it wouldn't have to, and those who are looking for it could find it just fine. This really does seem to be an area where Amazon is failing their customers.


It's been what almost 5 years and they still haven't done it. This has literally been a problem since they got into the ebooks business. Nope they are just going to blame the authors (most of who really do follow the rules) and force all the erotic books further down into the dungeon. You can almost set your watch to this continuous cycle.


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## Steve Margolis (Mar 31, 2015)

As someone who works with databases and information systems...there is an easy fix to this.

Amazon can fix this, but as they say on _Once Upon A Time_ - "There's always a price, dearie".

When we list our books for sale on Amazon, we basically have to enter all the book info (title, genre, cover, etc...). Amazon could simply add a check box called NOT EROTICA.

It would make more sense to do it this way than to ask an erotica author to check the EROTICA box.

Once a distinction has been made, Amazon can offer a filter that can be toggled on/off when searching.

The _gotcha_ is that all the existing books would need to be registered as NOT EROTICA. That means a lot of people and a lot of books being changed. This could cause server issues, delays, and cost people money.

But, if it's done carefully, the negative impact could be minimized.

So this issue can be fixed.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Sela said:


> When I was a little girl, say 8 or 9, my parents failed to turn on the adult filter to their boxes of books stored in the basement and I found Henry Miller and DH Lawrence books and was warped permanently as a result.  Not to mention copies of my father's (rather tame by today;s standards) Playboy. I could never figure out why ladies liked to pose naked whilst sprawling on rocks and beaches...


I got my sex education from my stepfathers Harold Robbins novel Goodbye Jeanette when I was like eleven. That did it for me. I started reading all his rapey pirate books he hid under the bed after that.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Aren't search results tailored to the customer profile (previous searches, previous purchases, etc?)


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

The problem with an adult filter is who will decide what is adult and how will it be filtered? At the very least, Amazon doesn't have the staff to comb through the 1000s of ebooks uploaded each day to decide on their content. Further, once Amazon becomes "a censor", then they draw the wrath of all the free-speechers, which is a very large group.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> How times change. When I was that age I just went through my parents' copy of The Joy of Sex. Hiding it in a suitcase in the basement? Pfft. I can't believe I just accidentally stumbled across it like that.


I sure hope I'm not the only one who occasionally still has nightmares about the remarkably hirsute models in that book's sketches.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

555aaa said:


> Aren't search results tailored to the customer profile (previous searches, previous purchases, etc?)


It's one of the flags used in the algo, but it isn't the only flag.


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## Steve Margolis (Mar 31, 2015)

katrina46 said:


> I got my sex education from my stepfathers Harold Robbins novel Goodbye Jeanette when I was like eleven. That did it for me. I started reading all his rapey pirate books he hid under the bed after that.


I got mine from _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> How times change. When I was that age I just went through my parents' copy of The Joy of Sex. Hiding it in a suitcase in the basement? Pfft. I can't believe I just accidentally stumbled across it like that.


Hmmm. Maybe it wasn't accidental. 

On a related note, knowing how some parents approach sex ed. with their kids, encouraging the kiddos to download free erotica might be a positive alternative.

(I'm kidding, of course.)


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

You cannot google anything and TEEN without getting porn 

it is insane


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


It is up to businesses not to be so pig stupid as to set themselves up for this again and again.

For all the talk of 'personal responsibility', we're trying to pretend we have a society here and responsibility is a two-way street. If you want to profit off of things you don't want all audiences to see, you put up a barrier to random people running into it. If you don't, you deserve all the hellfire you reap.


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## Steve Vernon (Feb 18, 2011)

Amanda M. Lee said:


> How times change. When I was that age I just went through my parents' copy of The Joy of Sex. Hiding it in a suitcase in the basement? Pfft. I can't believe I just accidentally stumbled across it like that.


Amen!

When I was a kid I read THE HAPPY HOOKER, THE SENSUAL MAN and THE SENSUAL WOMAN and a dozen or so nameless smutty paperbacks as well as an assorted dozen or two Playboy and Penthouse magazines - as WELL as Lady Chatterly's Lover.

God bless Grandpa and his love for cultural reading!


For my two bits I do NOT want to see another mass-cull like what happened at Kobo a while back.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Vaalingrade said:


> It is up to businesses not to be so pig stupid as to set themselves up for this again and again.
> 
> For all the talk of 'personal responsibility', we're trying to pretend we have a society here and responsibility is a two-way street. If you want to profit off of things you don't want all audiences to see, you put up a barrier to random people running into it. If you don't, you deserve all the hellfire you reap.


I agree except Amazon doesn't reap the hell fire. The authors do. Amazon never ever takes the blame.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Steve Margolis said:


> I got mine from _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_.


Well, Jessica was smoking hot.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> The problem with an adult filter is who will decide what is adult and how will it be filtered? At the very least, Amazon doesn't have the staff to comb through the 1000s of ebooks uploaded each day to decide on their content. Further, once Amazon becomes "a censor", then they draw the wrath of all the free-speechers, which is a very large group.


This is where it gets sticky. In a sane world you'd set the age range dropdown in the KDP interface to 18+, and Amazon would key the adult filter off of that. Then if you're an adult and you choose to do so, you could see adult content. But that's not what people really want. They just want to turn off the specific things that *they* don't want to see. Little Suzie's mom is probably fine with her consuming all sorts of adult content - so long as it doesn't include *gasp* _sex_.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Sela said:


> When I was a little girl, say 8 or 9, my parents failed to turn on the adult filter to their boxes of books stored in the basement and I found Henry Miller and DH Lawrence books and was warped permanently as a result.  Not to mention copies of my father's (rather tame by today;s standards) Playboy. I could never figure out why ladies liked to pose naked whilst sprawling on rocks and beaches...


THIS.

Intelligent and curious children will investigate what they want to investigate - one way or another. There was no Internet when I was a kid, but I read everything I wanted to read behind my mother's back, whether it was that part in _The Godfather_, or work by Harold Robbins, or work by Anais Nin, or doorknobs and Xavier Hollander, or works by the infamous Marquis de Sade.    (My mom didn't own any of that stuff - trust me.)

~~~~

With my children, I never bothered to censor. We had talks about sexuality that I never received as a child. And when they got to college, out of the house, they didn't turn into crazy maniacs who didn't know how to handle themselves without mommy and daddy breathing down their backs.


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## KDKinney (Aug 16, 2015)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


Obviously the mom was. I've tried looking up teen related books when working on my keywords and a majority of what comes up is erotica over anything useful. A mom can be sitting right there, searching with her daughter and this is the first thing that comes up, mostly undressed adults pawing at each other when you type in Young Adult anything.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Jan 12, 2014)

The world is not a safe place for anyone, much less children.

Every child that was ever born was conceived through sexual intercourse. 

There's nothing 'dirty' about sex. (Unless you like it that way.)

Kids should be learning about sex, safe sex and consent in particular. 

It's not the world's job to protect your kids for you, it's your job to protect your kids from the world.

As a parent myself, I've never understood the mindset that sex and nakedness are 'bad' and 'wrong', yet endless violence, guns, and bloodshed somehow is.


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## KDKinney (Aug 16, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> THIS.
> 
> Intelligent and curious children will investigate what they want to investigate - one way or another. There was no Internet when I was a kid, but I read everything I wanted to read behind my mother's back, whether it was that part in _The Godfather_, or work by Harold Robbins, or work by Anais Nin, or doorknobs and Xavier Hollander, or works by the infamous Marquis de Sade.    (My mom didn't own any of that stuff - trust me.)
> 
> ...


That's almost not the point. Honestly, you can't look up Young Adult books without getting pages of books that are not. Sure if kids want to know this stuff, they can find it. But when they're not, they shouldn't be bombarded with it.


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## Anarchist (Apr 22, 2015)

In my opinion, we shelter kids too much. 

They're going to find whatever they're looking for. Why not let them and have a thoughtful conversation regarding its merits or lack thereof.

Heck, my parents were strict, and I still managed to find my way to sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. And that was long before Al Gore created the interwebs, where everything can be had with a couple clicks.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

I'll bet money that the Look Inside feature on erotica or anything resembling it will be disabled. Following in the footsteps of Google and B&N.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

katrina46 said:


> I agree except Amazon doesn't reap the hell fire. The authors do. Amazon never ever takes the blame.


Oh, they reap it. They then come home drunk and backhand the authors to make themselves feel better.



Fishbowl Helmet said:


> Every child that was ever born was conceived through sexual intercourse.


Um... not really. Artificial Insemination is a thing these days.


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## Cookie Monster (Apr 6, 2014)

KDKinney said:


> That's almost not the point. Honestly, you can't look up Young Adult books without getting pages of books that are not. Sure if kids want to know this stuff, they can find it. But when they're not, they shouldn't be bombarded with it.


Having looked up "coming of age" books lately for YA research and regretted it, I agree completely. The erotica littering every other category of books on Amazon is making it impossible to find things through searches without including half a dozen "-erotic" clauses. This has caused me to stop looking for books through general searches in the store. Instead, I'm relying on recommendations and also-boughts.

That's not good for authors, because Amazon handles issues like these with a sledgehammer. Many innocent authors correctly categorizing their books will lose out when Amazon does decide to handle this situation.

As I see it, it has nothing to do with children, specifically, and everything to do with keeping their search the best in the retail business. Amazon thrives because they satisfy customers, and turning up erotica when looking for slow cooker recipes is really not a satisfying customer experience.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Lady Vine said:


> I'll bet money that the Look Inside feature on erotica or anything resembling it will be disabled. Following in the footsteps of Google and B&N.


Yeah, but then what happens when the look inside feature to a thriller starts off with a mafia/stripper gang bang like the one I just bought? And, no, it's not miscategorized. It's not erotica, just a hardcore thriller that has a lot of cursing and sex.


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## WordNinja (Jun 26, 2014)

Steve Margolis said:


> When we list our books for sale on Amazon, we basically have to enter all the book info (title, genre, cover, etc...). Amazon could simply add a check box called NOT EROTICA.
> 
> It would make more sense to do it this way than to ask an erotica author to check the EROTICA box.
> 
> Once a distinction has been made, Amazon can offer a filter that can be toggled on/off when searching.


Well, it's not simply a question of whether it's erotica. I don't write erotica, but my books are only for people over 18. But as previously stated, Amazon *already* has a place where you indicate the appropriate age range for your books, and mine are all 18+.

Amazon can filter out 18+ books from searches that contain "teen," "YA," or "young adult." It's really just that simple. So why don't they do it?


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

There's a difference between being a responsible parent, monitoring your child and a company ensuring that you don't get erotica thrown in with every search. 

This parent was monitoring their child and found out, as I did, just how hard it is to search for a book without getting erotica. Heck, I was annoyed enough with it to finally send an email Bezo's way and have the standard response that it's been kicked over to the appropriate people to check into it. The more people who do this, the more chance Amazon will actually do something about it. 

I have some erotica written and published with them and I am certain that I wouldn't want them to come up in any category that my work is aimed at. I also know that with the best will in the world, it could be seen by kids and they are certainly not something they should be reading or even looking at. 

Any parent can keep watch on their kids, but asking that a site as large as Amazon to have a content filter isn't wrong or indicative of demanding the world be made safe.


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## KDKinney (Aug 16, 2015)

It also hurts me as a YA writer. Who is going to be able to find me when a search for teen romance is done and it is filled with pages of stuff totally unrelated to YA.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Rhayn said:


> There's a difference between being a responsible parent, monitoring your child and a company ensuring that you don't get erotica thrown in with every search.
> 
> This parent was monitoring their child and found out, as I did, just how hard it is to search for a book without getting erotica. Heck, I was annoyed enough with it to finally send an email Bezo's way and have the standard response that it's been kicked over to the appropriate people to check into it. The more people who do this, the more chance Amazon will actually do something about it.
> 
> ...


Amazon cannot create a filter that will keep all adult content from your eyes. It is simply impossible. So, if it's a problem that you're faced with, you're going to have to find another solution.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

KDKinney said:


> That's almost not the point. Honestly, you can't look up Young Adult books without getting pages of books that are not. Sure if kids want to know this stuff, they can find it. But when they're not, they shouldn't be bombarded with it.


My opinion remains the same - Amazon is not a babysitter. If they want to add a "safe search," fine. However, it wouldn't bother *me* if they never do. (I'm not much into morality debates. Sorry.)

I've had kids, and I love the way my husband and I raised our kids (now 21 and almost 24.) We did a good job. They're happy, educated, functioning, working and well-adjusted. The morality police didn't do my husband and I any favors as we were growing up. So we made sure not to raise our kids the way we were raised.

To each his or her own.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Fishbowl Helmet said:


> The world is not a safe place for anyone, much less children.
> 
> Every child that was ever born was conceived through sexual intercourse.
> 
> ...


I have two daughters and I have had 'the talk' with them. My focus was on consent, how they should do only what they are comfortable with and don't sext... that's stupid and also can get you in trouble with the law if you are under 16... The rest of it was the usual - how to stay safe, what constitutes consent.

Even with all that, I wouldn't want either of them to read any of my - rather violent - books that I admit to, let alone the kinky stuff I write in erotica.

The simple fact is, you should be able to search for a book without having a load of erotica thrown at you. If for no other reason than if you don't read it, it's a pain in the butt to find the stuff you do enjoy.


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## AngryGames (Jul 28, 2013)

My niece, 12 years old at the time, had just finished "The Hunger Games." At the end, her Kindle suggested "50 Shades of Grey" so she downloaded it. Imagine her mother's surprise. 

We didn't have the internet when I was young. I did, however, have an on older brother (7 years and 7 days older) who had a subscription to Playboy thanks to my mother. We shared a bedroom, and you can imagine the looks of surprise on my friends' faces when they walked in and saw his side's wall covered with Playmates. 

Mom had Playgirl magazines at the top of her closet. I checked those out too (and couldn't figure out why she swooned over guys like Tom Selleck and other hairy weird looking dudes). At the bottom of her stack, she had some full-on hardcore porn magazines (glossy pages like a National Geographic!). 

I discovered, as did most of my friends I grew up with, the VHS tapes soon after. I remember sitting around with friends before school one morning watching some weird porn movie and we all were either grossed out or couldn't stop laughing. 

My point? I don't know. But I do know that I feel like a pretty normal person. I'm also a big believer that hiding sexuality from kids does them far more harm. Then again, I also believe teaching young boys/men to respect women and NO MEANS NO is far more important than trying to stop them from seeing XXX T&A on the internet. But that's me. I guess that's because we talked to our kids, and now our kids are talking to their kids about this stuff as if they were adults. Kids know when you're bullshitting them. No matter how smart or smooth you think you are, they know.


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## Guest (Sep 16, 2015)

Briteka said:


> Amazon cannot create a filter that will keep all adult content from your eyes. It is simply impossible. So, if it's a problem that you're faced with, you're going to have to find another solution.


Just because we can't have a perfect solution doesn't mean we should give up on having any solution at all.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

I'm not sure why anyone would actually think some toggle will actually work. If it's based on input from the author to indicated 18+, there will be authors who won't and therefore won't get caught in the safe search filter.

Just witness the plethora of clearly erotica titles in the romance category skirting the issue because their stepbrother werewolf alpha billionaire baby-daddy with heavy duty explicit sex scenes in every other chapter because it has an HEA and therefore is certainly deserving to be in the romance and not erotica categories.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Andrea @ ArtWellPub said:


> Amazon can filter out 18+ books from searches that contain "teen," "YA," or "young adult." It's really just that simple. So why don't they do it?


Because teen, young, and adult are all completely valid keywords that might be used for an erotica book. And the erotica market is much, much, much larger than the YA market.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

From a strictly business viewpoint, it's not a matter of censorship. The problem is that people legitimately can't find what they're looking for because a flood of porn shows up at the top of almost any search you do. It has to be bad for business if your customers can't find what they want to buy. If I want erotica, it's easy to find. Other things, not so easy.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

stoney said:


> I'm not sure why anyone would actually think some toggle will actually work. If it's based on input from the author to indicated 18+, there will be authors who won't and therefore won't get caught in the safe search filter.
> 
> Just witness the plethora of clearly erotica titles in the romance category skirting the issue because their stepbrother werewolf alpha billionaire baby-daddy with heavy duty explicit sex scenes in every other chapter because it has an HEA and therefore is certainly deserving to be in the romance and not erotica categories.


The entire reason this came about was as a direct result of Amazon's failed attempts to "do something" without actually implementing a working adult filter.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

going over to Amazon to search, brb

ok, back now. Uhm, am I missing something? This is what I get when I search "free kindle books for teenagers". http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22free+Kindle+books+for+teenagers%22 and when I click the first choice, this is what comes up http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AKindle+books+teenagers&keywords=Kindle+books+teenagers&ie=UTF8&qid=1442434581

Was it a teenager who got caught looking for naughty bits on Amazon, or do some people get more adult material and/or porn when they search?


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## Cookie Monster (Apr 6, 2014)

ebbrown said:


> going over to Amazon to search, brb
> 
> ok, back now. Uhm, am I missing something? This is what I get when I search "free kindle books for teenagers". http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22free+Kindle+books+for+teenagers%22 and when I click the first choice, this is what comes up http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AKindle+books+teenagers&keywords=Kindle+books+teenagers&ie=UTF8&qid=1442434581
> 
> Was it a teenager who got caught looking for naughty bits on Amazon, or do some people get more porn when they search?


In the article, Amazon said it was a "temporary miscategorization," so I'm sure someone has already gone in to clean up those searches because of the publicity coming down.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

I did the same search and came up empty as well. I'm guessing that Amazon slapped something in place to sanitize the search results on that keyword set as soon as this came out - probably blocking the books in question so they would no longer appear. Amazon claimed that the erotica which appeared was "temporarily miscategorized" in the original article, but categorization would make no difference at all if you were doing a high-level search in the general or kindle store. At worst it would simply shuffle those books towards the back of the search results, not eliminate them entirely.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

ebbrown said:


> going over to Amazon to search, brb
> 
> ok, back now. Uhm, am I missing something? This is what I get when I search "free kindle books for teenagers". http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22free+Kindle+books+for+teenagers%22 and when I click the first choice, this is what comes up http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AKindle+books+teenagers&keywords=Kindle+books+teenagers&ie=UTF8&qid=1442434581
> 
> Was it a teenager who got caught looking for naughty bits on Amazon, or do some people get more adult material and/or porn when they search?


Like I said, your search results depend on your previous searches. Pretty sure about that. Also you need to search on the uk site.

Jeff Bezos has a side business building spaceships (Blue Origin), for chrissakes, so Amazon has enough money to have actual human beings screen 1,000 books a day. It's really not that much work for a big company.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Just because we can't have a perfect solution doesn't mean we should give up on having any solution at all.


Except any solution will still allow the offending bits to get through, solving nothing while creating even more of a headache. Things that are built to restrict something never actually restrict those things but always come with horrible side effects.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Briteka said:


> Further, once Amazon becomes "a censor", then they draw the wrath of all the free-speechers, which is a very large group.


Amazon already is a censor. If you don't believe that, you've never tried to publish erotica through them.

I've found that most self-proclaimed 'free-speechers' don't really understand the concept, and are perfectly willing to advocate the censorship of books they personally find offensive.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Briteka said:


> Amazon cannot create a filter that will keep all adult content from your eyes. It is simply impossible. So, if it's a problem that you're faced with, you're going to have to find another solution.


The goal is to prevent stories like the OP posted from being hung out like some warning flag about how the evil Amazon is terrorizing our children. Because, eventually, it's the authors who suffer.

A switch each individual user could set to denote whether or not they wanted to see adult content would do that. Once it's in place, most of the adult content would be behind that screen. And if someone turned it on, it would be their choice, not Amazon's.

An analogy would be where a drugstore puts the girly magazines on the top shelf of the rack, out of the line of sight and out of the reach of children. Sure, a kid could climb up and grab one, or one might accidentally fall off, but the store has made a responsible effort to keep that material away from anyone who shouldn't, or doesn't want to, see it.

You don't see newspaper stories like this published about Google, even though they have much more porn (and I mean PORN) available to anyone who can click a mouse. That's because they've taken steps to keep it away from those who don't want to see it. Do they filter out everything? No. But they've made the effort.


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## mica (Jun 19, 2015)

Jim Johnson said:


> It's not perfect, but I've started using negative keywords when searching on Amazon for books. It's the only (partly) reliable way to find what I want to read without tons of erotica titles showing up.
> 
> I add -erotic and -romance to my search criteria and it's helped. I don't expect a kid to know that, though, so I do hope Amazon can come up with some sort of safe search function. Erotica titles have sprung up like weeds in pretty much every category I've seen.


I saw this mentioned on another forum and I'm surprised by a couple responses. Blaming a kid or her parents when she was innocently looking for a book for teenagers is disgusting. These authors miscategorizing know what they are doing and it is wrong. These books are not categorized in erotica. They are in women's fiction, contem romance, YA and coming of age. 
I enjoy reading erotica but I am tired of searching for new romance and getting pages of erotica titles. I do the same as Jim but I add a lot more negative keywords and it's exhausting. I now rely on goodreads for new romance books.

All Amazon has to do is add an adult filter but Amazon are sitting on their hands and raking in the money.


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## WordNinja (Jun 26, 2014)

stoney said:


> I'm not sure why anyone would actually think some toggle will actually work. If it's based on input from the author to indicated 18+, there will be authors who won't and therefore won't get caught in the safe search filter.


I suspect this is exactly why Amazon hasn't instituted an 18+ filter. The backlash would be even worse if the 18+ filter was turned on and erotica got through anyway.


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## mica (Jun 19, 2015)

Briteka said:


> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


So what if the parent was sitting next to the child searching for a book for teenage girls and these types of books popped up in their search. The parent might not know that she needs to use negative keywords, word her search in such a way that she only gets books aimed at teenage girls rather than 'daddy has a threesome with the babysitter and stepdaughter'.

There has to be some safe places/zones for kids to look, play and be safe. I cannot look at porn on yahoo, google or duckduckgo unless I sign in and turn on cookies.


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## mica (Jun 19, 2015)

KDKinney said:


> That's almost not the point. Honestly, you can't look up Young Adult books without getting pages of books that are not. Sure if kids want to know this stuff, they can find it. But when they're not, they shouldn't be bombarded with it.


Exactly


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

stoney said:


> I'm not sure why anyone would actually think some toggle will actually work. If it's based on input from the author to indicated 18+, there will be authors who won't and therefore won't get caught in the safe search filter.
> 
> Just witness the plethora of clearly erotica titles in the romance category skirting the issue because their stepbrother werewolf alpha billionaire baby-daddy with heavy duty explicit sex scenes in every other chapter because it has an HEA and therefore is certainly deserving to be in the romance and not erotica categories.


The reason why the Erotica category is skirted, is because Amazon has placed special rules on the Erotica category, putting off-limits certain words for blurbs and titles. Words that help the readers find books they're searching for. If you use those words, or show too much skin on your cover, you could be placed under the adult filter, a super-secret filter that the readers aren't aware of. So they have books hidden from them without knowing it.

If you put the book in another category, say Romance, those restrictions don't apply, and you end up with more sales, because more people can find your book. It's just authors responding to the rules that Amazon put in place.

Also, certain keywords will automatically place your books into other categories. This could be intentional, but it could be by accident, and an author wouldn't even be aware of it unless they looked.

If a user-based toggle were to be put in place, it would solve all of this. Author's would happily mark their books as adult, knowing that readers who were looking for adult content could easily find them, and also knowing that readers who didn't want to see them wouldn't. Most erotica authors I know realize they're not going to sell their books to people who don't like erotica, so there's no motivation to not mark them as adult.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

555aaa said:


> Like I said, your search results depend on your previous searches. Pretty sure about that. Also you need to search on the uk site.
> 
> Jeff Bezos has a side business building spaceships (Blue Origin), for chrissakes, so Amazon has enough money to have actual human beings screen 1,000 books a day. It's really not that much work for a big company.


In that case, you would think my search would be all porn.   Just sayin'.

But seriously, I agree. I don't see why Amazon doesn't just make a little click box search filter thingy, like SW and other sites have. It's a little thing they could easily implement and it would make people happy.


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## mica (Jun 19, 2015)

Rhayn said:


> There's a difference between being a responsible parent, monitoring your child and a company ensuring that you don't get erotica thrown in with every search.
> 
> This parent was monitoring their child and found out, as I did, just how hard it is to search for a book without getting erotica. Heck, I was annoyed enough with it to finally send an email Bezo's way and have the standard response that it's been kicked over to the appropriate people to check into it. The more people who do this, the more chance Amazon will actually do something about it.
> 
> ...


I did the same. I emailed Jeff Bezos and got some standard reply. Sometimes I think they don't give a dam and are just interested in raking in that money.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

ebbrown said:


> I don't see why Amazon doesn't just make a little click box search filter thingy, like SW and other sites have. It's a little thing they could easily implement and it would make people happy.


I'd prefer it be some kind of user setting (like Smashwords), rather than a checkbox on search. Less accidents that way. (And make the user preferences password-protected, so that kids can't change it themselves.)


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

swolf said:


> I'd prefer it be some kind of user setting (like Smashwords), rather than a checkbox on search. Less accidents that way. (And make the user preferences password-protected, so that kids can't change it themselves.)


How would the 'Zon know a book qualified? Check for the F word?


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## mojomikey (Apr 9, 2014)

vrabinec said:


> This is an outrage. Kids shouldn't have access to erotica on the internet. They should have to get hand-me-down Playboys from their friends' big brothers like we had to do back in my day. Toughens them up. Gives them an appreciation for it they'll never get if they find it willy nilly on the net.


This. And it really toughens 'em up if they don't have an older brother (I don't...had to wise up my two younger ones)


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## AkBee (Aug 24, 2012)

As a parent, I wish Amazon's search was all I had to contend with. Kids have cell phones with access to the Internet. My son's school cracked down on cell phones because, in his words, some kids were showing butt pictures to other kids on their phones. A teacher friend told me about a student in the 4th grade who was watching porn on his phone on the bus. Amazon was not involved. My child is eight. He has no cell phone nor does he have unlimited access to the Internet. Believe me when I say that is a rarity amongst his peers nowadays. Do I think a filter would be nice? Yes! Do I think it will happen? Maybe. But I won't be over here holding my breath.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

swolf said:


> The reason why the Erotica category is skirted, is because Amazon has placed special rules on the Erotica category, putting off-limits certain words for blurbs and titles. Words that help the readers find books they're searching for. If you use those words, or show too much skin on your cover, you could be placed under the adult filter, a super-secret filter that the readers aren't aware of. So they have books hidden from them without knowing it.
> 
> If you put the book in another category, say Romance, those restrictions don't apply, and you end up with more sales, because more people can find your book. It's just authors responding to the rules that Amazon put in place.
> 
> ...


It's a good thing I thought to refresh this before responding considering you've changed your response a bit.

To address what you stated originally, however, I do understand the situation. Quite well, thanks.

I still disagree that a user-based toggle would solve _everything_. I will agree installing a toggle _along with_ implementing a better system than the current keyword system would be better. It's the abuse of the keywords (because yeah, sometimes an erotica title does get stuck in a catagory it shouldn't be in by accident does happen), I've been witness to too many discussions by erotica writers who actively discuss how to get _around_ the filters to convince me otherwise.

They're not going to stop just because Amazon institutes a little toggle that may filter out being able to get the maximum set of eyes on their books.

It's a discussion that's as old as Amazon. Their search system sucks.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

AkBee said:


> As a parent, I wish Amazon's search was all I had to contend with. Kids have cell phones with access to the Internet. My son's school cracked down on cell phones because, in his words, some kids were showing butt pictures to other kids on their phones. A teacher friend told me about a student in the 4th grade who was watching porn on his phone on the bus. Amazon was not involved. My child is eight. He has no cell phone nor does he have unlimited access to the Internet. Believe me when I say that is a rarity amongst his peers nowadays. Do I think a filter would be nice? Yes! Do I think it will happen? Maybe. But I won't be over here holding my breath.


Yeah, I hear ya. I'm more worried about the stuff she hears at school than I am about what she searches on the internet. I raised her pretty decent, so y'know that's half the battle when dealing with internet. She knows what she shouldn't be looking at. Currently my teenager covers her face and fast forward through any sex scenes we encounter on tv, so I'm keeping fingers crossed she's not downloading porn on the internet in her spare time.


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## dirtiestdevil (Aug 20, 2014)

Following the success of Kindle Unlimited, amazon has decided to implement a new subscription based service.

That's right, folks! KID-STOPPER! For just $19.99 a month, amazon will completely remove your child's access from any and all internet based usage of their site.

For an additional $9.99 per month, amazon will even supply parents with a new and original problem for them to gripe and complain about.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

stoney said:


> It's a good thing I thought to refresh this before responding considering you've changed your response a bit.
> 
> To address what you stated originally, however, I do understand the situation. Quite well, thanks.


No you don't, as your response indicates. You're getting your info from listening to erotica authors having discussions, rather than actually publishing erotica yourself.



stoney said:


> I still disagree that a user-based toggle would solve _everything_. I will agree installing a toggle _along with_ implementing a better system than the current keyword system would be better. It's the abuse of the keywords (because yeah, sometimes an erotica title does get stuck in a catagory it shouldn't be in by accident does happen), I've been witness to too many discussions by erotica writers who actively discuss how to get _around_ the filters to convince me otherwise.
> 
> They're not going to stop just because Amazon institutes a little toggle that may filter out being able to get the maximum set of eyes on their books.
> 
> It's a discussion that's as old as Amazon. Their search system sucks.


If they implement a toggle, there's no reason to get around the filters. The reason erotica authors try to get around the adult filter is that the users aren't aware of it. So the books become lost, with the readers having no clue that content matching their search is being excluded from their results. If there's a toggle, users are aware of the filter, and can turn it off or on as they wish. And they know they're seeing everything available. That's a MUCH better situation for erotica authors, and if it was implemented, there would be no reason for erotica authors to try to skirt it. It would be in their best interest to have their books marked as adult.

And the category a book is in would no longer matter to this situation. If it's marked as adult, and the user has indicated they don't want to see adult content, they wouldn't see it.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

vrabinec said:


> How would the 'Zon know a book qualified? Check for the F word?


Just do what Smashwords does. Have a checkbox for Adult Content when the book is published.

There'd be no motivation to mark it incorrectly. If it's adult, and you mark it as non-adult, readers (who would never buy it) are going to submit complaints about it. If it's not adult, and you mark it as adult, it's going to be hidden from many of your potential readers.

And Amazon just has to come down on those receiving complaints, and the rest of the authors would see that they're serious.

Of course, there's adult and there's 'adult', but it's obvious we're dealing with the sexual 'adult' here. Those are where the complaints are coming from.


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## mica (Jun 19, 2015)

In this case highlighted by the BBC, there's a difference between a pre-teen or young teenager learning about safe sex and learning how babies are made (maybe earlier than their parents wanted) but these kids coming across books about 'daddy doing the babysitter or stepdaughter' or 'teacher rams the student in front of the class with his huge ****' or 'girl gets stuffed in all holes'. 

I wouldn't want to sit and talk to my niece about these sorts of things.


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## Fishbowl Helmet (Jan 12, 2014)

swolf said:


> Amazon already is a censor. If you don't believe that, you've never tried to publish erotica through them.


*facepalm*

A publisher opting to not publish your work is not censorship. A distributor opting to not distribute your work is not censorship. An editor opting to not accept your submission is not censorship.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

swolf said:


> Just do what Smashwords does. Have a checkbox for Adult Content when the book is published.


If it had ever really been about protecting children from adult content, that's exactly what they'd have done a long time ago.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Fishbowl Helmet said:


> *facepalm*
> 
> A publisher opting to not publish your work is not censorship. A distributor opting to not distribute your work is not censorship. An editor opting to not accept your submission is not censorship.


Yes, Amazon is censoring. Here's the definition:



> Full Definition of CENSOR
> transitive verb
> : to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable <censor the news>; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable <censor out indecent passages>


And Amazon themselves agree it's censorship:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/40112145/ns/technology_and_science-digital_home/t/amazon-defends-pedophiles-guide/



> "Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable... Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions."


That was five years ago. They've obviously changed their mind and decided to censor things they found objectionable.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

This really has nothing to do with erotica and EVERYTHING to do with correct categorization.

Whether or not you think every person who doesn't want their 9-year-old coming across dino erotica when searching Amazon for "dinosaurs' is an oppressive prude, the fact is* they weren't searching for erotica*. Regardless of morality or lack of morality or people enforcing their views on other people, _it's poor customer service_.

That is the part that should worry Amazon.

If people keep getting crap in their search results, regardless of whether that crap is knitting non-fiction listed in swords and sorcery or billionaire bonking in toddler board books, those results do not provide a satisfactory result for the person looking to spend some cash.

Removing people's ability to predict what will result from their searches and substituting junk they don't want to buy will drive customers away. And customers are the only part of this equation that matters to a business.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

MyraScott said:


> This really has nothing to do with erotica and EVERYTHING to do with correct categorization.
> 
> Whether or not you think every person who doesn't want their 9-year-old coming across dino erotica when searching Amazon for "dinosaurs' is an oppressive prude, the fact is* they weren't searching for erotica*. Regardless of morality or lack of morality or people enforcing their views on other people, _it's poor customer service_.
> 
> ...


No search algo is perfect, especially Amazon's. The issue isn't that Amazon's search algo is bad because if that was the case, no one would use it to search (because it IS bad). The issue is that erotica is popping up, but there's no way to stop that unless Amazon screens every book published. I'm not sure Amazon will ever be willing to do that.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

vrabinec said:


> How would the 'Zon know a book qualified? Check for the F word?


Well, they do check spelling because they informed me of possibly misspelled words when I uploaded.

So there is at least a rudimentary way to filter.


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## MyraScott (Jul 18, 2014)

Briteka said:


> No search algo is perfect, especially Amazon's. The issue isn't that Amazon's search algo is bad because if that was the case, no one would use it to search (because it IS bad). The issue is that erotica is popping up, but there's no way to stop that unless Amazon screens every book published. I'm not sure Amazon will ever be willing to do that.


That is absolutely not true. But there's no point explaining it to you. You are welcome to your opinion that this is an impossible problem for Amazon to solve, but most coders here (and we are an author's forum) can easily give you several strategies so that this doesn't happen. Which don't involve hand screening of every book.

It's Amazon's problem to solve. And it is a customer experience issue, even if your morals are offended or your freedoms are offended. Those problems are caused by the issues with their current categorization system.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

MyraScott said:


> That is absolutely not true. But there's no point explaining it to you. You are welcome to your opinion that this is an impossible problem for Amazon to solve, but most coders here (and we are an author's forum) can easily give you several strategies so that this doesn't happen. Which don't involve hand screening of every book.
> 
> It's Amazon's problem to solve. And it is a customer experience issue, even if your morals are offended or your freedoms are offended. Those problems are caused by the issues with their current categorization system.


Any system that requires authors to self-identify erotica will be a failure. I'm glad that you and "coders" on the site think there's some magic bullet, but there isn't. As for the rest of your comment, I have no idea what you're talking about. My morals and "freedoms" aren't offended. I just know the limitations of Amazon's system. Anything but screening by hand will be a failure.


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## Jessica R (Nov 11, 2012)

I hate it when people say "Well, watch what your kid is doing." It's ridiculous to put in those search terms and get those results. Of course it would be nicer for parents if there was a filter to help them out. There should be protections everywhere for people who want them. No one should have that shoved in their face if they don't want it. I can't be over all my kids shoulders every second. Luckily right now they play mine craft and watch Disney channel and I tell them not to Google things without me there and to only use certain categories on Pinterest but it sucks that they can't look for a book without that popping up. I just think it's wrong to assume parents are inattentive when they try to get companies to be responsible.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

AnnChristy said:


> No, in this case I don't think so. If so, then as a user of Amazon since Amazon came on the scene, I doubt very much I would have to wade through page after page after page of billionaire, werewolf/bear/gopher/squid/whatever, stepbrother, stepcousin twice removed, bbw stuff when I do a simple search of Science Fiction Romance. Give me a break. It ain't scifi and it ain't romance. (No offense to anyone here because those things are all keyword stuffed to include the words "clean" in their excessively long subtitles.) Blech.


You too? Sci fi romance is one of my favorite romance subgenres and its hard enough as it is to find the good stuff. Searching for it on amazon is useless, using categories is pretty much just as useless. Like you said, one has to wade page after page after page to find something that might possibly be SFR, until you click on it that is. I gave up searching or browsing on amazon pretty much. Romance in particular has been overun by the porn and banging erotica and just plain wrongly categorized stuff. And I don't believe for a second that those authors didn't stuff their stuff into romance on purpose. They want romance reader eyes on that stuff.

I don't have kids so I don't have any idea about that part of it, but as a reader and consumer, it is way out of hand at this point.

Just gimme my darn length filter/eliminator and 99.99% of the flyer length stuff would be out of my sight. Sigh. Its sad that I have to go to goodreads to find books to read that I then go purchase on Amazon. I used to love browsing on Amazon. I found so many great reads over the years. Now its pages and pages of "books" with titles that are longer than whats inside of them.

I don't think there is any search term anymore where the keyword stuffers haven't taken over.

Maybe such publicity is needed for Amazon to try to do something. All the emails we customers send about it haven't done anything.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Briteka said:


> Any system that requires authors to self-identify erotica will be a failure.


Why? What would motivate an erotica author to not label their work as adult, if the system was designed to funnel readers who wanted to see adult material towards books with that label? Why wouldn't they want to target the audience that was most likely to buy their books?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I do not give a damn about some moral panic because someone under 18 sees something naughty.

I want to see this cleaned up because it's making my life irritating when i'm a reader and consumer at Amazon. You basically can't browse or search for anything without a torrent of short hardcore erotica just plain making it difficult to find what you're looking for. It was bad enough when it was just romance, but it's everywhere now.


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## Overrated (Mar 20, 2015)

It's a different world than the one I grew up in. Bemoan it - yes, I do. Then I go about making sure that I control my kids' access the best I can. We use Freetime - they can do things within it, but other than that, they aren't allowed on Amazon. It's MY account. I know when they're using data on the cell. I check the cell regularly, and encourage them to talk to us about anything that they have questions about.

We don't want to get into my having to explain what "All About That Bass" really meant. I have discovered my kids think a round bottom is attractive. I don't need to know this, but there you are.

To me, the problem is that no one really understands the true workings of how the hell Amazon suggests things to you, or culls things for whatever it is you're searching for. I don't seem to have the same kind of problems with wading through porn when I'm browsing for books. Perhaps I'm not doing searches right? 

I know I'm probably opening myself up to backlash, but I think the mom overreacted. It was HER job to just say, "Honey, that's not really appropriate for you. Here, give me that, and let me run your search for a moment." My kids know that sometimes I tell them, It's not appropriate, and take over. Additionally, they know that sometimes, they are going to see things I don't approve of, but that if I am not the one running the show, I can't control the behavior of others, or everything they see. So they know they might see something I don't like - but it's not the end of the world. Maybe I'm just too tired, or laid back, or something.

I'd have no issues with a Adult Content toggle. No method is foolproof, but it would be a good thing to have.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

swolf said:


> No you don't, as your response indicates. You're getting your info from listening to erotica authors having discussions, rather than actually publishing erotica yourself.


Since you know me better than I know myself, I'm bowing out of this discussion.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

stoney said:


> Since you know me better than I know myself, I'm bowing out of this discussion.


Actually, I know the topic better, since I've been living through it for the past four years.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

When Bezo's kids start stumbling upon porn, it'll get fixed quick. 
I write for teens, and my daughter is constantly searching for teen books. Finding them (I'm not sure why the search function doesn't work better) is hard. Maybe that's an effect of the bestseller lists NOT weighting past sales better, but weighting new stuff higher.


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## WordNinja (Jun 26, 2014)

- Erotica authors are posting their stuff in romance because romance has better visibility than erotica, thanks to Amazon's stupid rules. 
- A book that's truly romance, rather than erotica, may also be inappropriate for people under 18. When erotica authors post their books in romance, it isn't to fool people into thinking that the book is not for an adult audience. Romance runs the gamut from clean to explicit. 
- The filters that erotica authors are trying to avoid are those that would put their book in the adult dungeon. They're not trying to keep the books out of erotica. 
- Most erotica authors want their books to be marked adult, but don't want to be adult dungeoned where they can't be found. Unfortunately, that's not an option at Amazon. 
- There will always be trolls who put their dirty books where kids can find them. But most authors aren't intentionally adding keywords that would result in the books showing up in a search by someone who isn't specifically looking for a book like theirs. The keywords field only has 400 characters - why waste characters to attract someone who isn't a potential customer? Today I took the word "eighteen" out of the keywords for one of my books, in case it might inadvertently show up if someone searches on "teen." Who knows how the keywords work? We're all just doing the best we can within the constraints of the system.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Amazon is not your babysitter.


True. They are not. But a child (or anyone) who types in "free Kindle books for teenagers" should not have to worry that they are going to be assaulted by the likes of _Debby Does Dallas_.

Anyone on here who is a programmer knows that it would not be *that* difficult to add an "erotica" switch to the search engine.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Briteka said:


> Except any solution will still allow the offending bits to get through, solving nothing while creating even more of a headache. Things that are built to restrict something never actually restrict those things but always come with horrible side effects.


So any solution other than a Platonically perfect one "solves nothing"? Also, I'm not convinced that an imperfect solution will necessarily create more problems than it solves (though I do see how that may be the case, if planned and executed poorly).

The problem here is that readers want the freedom to see only what they want to see, while writers want the freedom to say (or write) anything that they want to say. Both of those things can be satisfied--freedom of speech as well as parental controls. With a good (albeit less than perfect) adult filter, it really can be a win-win. With the way Amazon is currently doing it, it's a big fat lose-lose.


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## Abderian (Apr 5, 2012)

Arguing there's no perfect solution so there's no point in doing anything is like arguing we shouldn't have speed limits because there will still be car crashes. Or any other number of situations where a system isn't 100% effective. It shouldn't prevent us from trying.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

MyraScott said:


> This really has nothing to do with erotica and EVERYTHING to do with correct categorization.
> 
> Whether or not you think every person who doesn't want their 9-year-old coming across dino erotica when searching Amazon for "dinosaurs' is an oppressive prude, the fact is* they weren't searching for erotica*. Regardless of morality or lack of morality or people enforcing their views on other people, _it's poor customer service_.
> 
> ...


Amazon isn't hurting for customers. So don't hold your breath. Until another company comes along that's as convenient for people as Amazon is, with regards to variety, prices, shipping speed, etc., folks aren't going anywhere.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Amazon isn't hurting for customers. So don't hold your breath. Until another company comes along that's as convenient for people as Amazon is, with regards to variety, prices, shipping speed, etc., folks aren't going anywhere.


Give it time. Unless, of course, the government decides to bail them out.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Just to clarify, when I upload my latest naughty masterpiece of kink, I select the categories as usually "Erotica" and occasionally "Erotic Romance" - If it is more romance with some sexy times thrown in. 
Does that mean they are dungeoned? 

If I type in keywords for that particular kink then my stuff comes up so it can be found by someone searching for it. What doesn't seem to happen is that anyone searching for something else that might just possibly be related, will have it thrust at them. 

It is definitely a problem that is increasing. When I first bought my kindle and loved it deeply, I could type in - fantasy, sci-fi, zombie and actually have pages of those books come up. Now, it is pages of erotica with the occasional book I am looking for thrown in. 

Since I don't purchase erotica that often, seeing all of those books constantly while actually looking for something else does one thing and one thing only. It makes me stop searching. It makes me go elsewhere and take my money with me. 

That is what I explained when I complained to Amazon and I hope others will too, because once they start to realise that people are taking their money elsewhere... they may try to make some changes. 

At the moment, that money is a drop in an ocean but it will be growing. Erotica can be a great deal of fun to read and satisfy a particular urge, but unless it is the one thing you read most of all, you don't want it turning up in every search. 

An adult filter or a length filter would work in most cases, though a length filter would affect some short story writers in other genres. While you can use the "-erotica" to exclude keywords, if you are searching on your kindle then you don't have that option.


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## AuthorX (Nov 11, 2014)

The internet contains content... lots of content. If you give a kid a computer, they will eventually stumble across the adult content even when they aren't looking for it.

A video store contains videos... lots of videos. If you unleash a kid in a video store long enough they'll eventually stumble across the R and X-Rated videos even when they aren't looking for it.

A bookstore contains books... lots of books. If you give a kid a Kindle... I'm sure you can tell where I'm going here.


To be honest, I'm sick of parents trying to box everyone else in because they can't police their kids themselves. It's really, really annoying. I'd be more concerned with my kid reading a thriller that contained murder, death, and violence than some silly, harmless erotica, but even so I wouldn't give my kid a Kindle and tell them to do whatever they wanted with it. 

Adding an adult filter or whatever restriction you want isn't going to stop a kid from unclicking it and start typing in sex words. Teenagers aren't stupid. You might think they are, but they're not. They're savvy and they will look for things they shouldn't when you're not looking if you give them something that gives them free access. Trying to put everything inside a superficial pandora's box is just going to draw them to search for that stuff even more.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Fishbowl Helmet said:


> The world is not a safe place for anyone, much less children.
> Every child that was ever born was conceived through sexual intercourse.
> There's nothing 'dirty' about sex. (Unless you like it that way.)
> Kids should be learning about sex, safe sex and consent in particular.
> ...


This. For most of our time, civilised and not so civilised, indeed roughly until the 19th century, children and parents slept in one large room. The parents did not stop having sex just because their kids slept in that room as well, and not everyone was rich enough to own curtained four-poster beds. Up until very recently children watched live sexshows, either their parents, or the animals in the yard. And undeniably people were more devout and religious, and they still managed to build civilisations.

I also always am astonished how little all those mothers care about violence (destructive) offered to even younger children, but they freak out over sex (constructive).


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

AuthorX said:


> The internet contains content... lots of content. If you give a kid a computer, they will eventually stumble across the adult content even when they aren't looking for it.
> 
> A video store contains videos... lots of videos. If you unleash a kid in a video store long enough they'll eventually stumble across the R and X-Rated videos even when they aren't looking for it.
> 
> ...


Maybe I'm missing something here. But if it's so simple that kids can just unclick it and start typing in sex words, then how is Amazon simultaneously boxing people in? Are adults now no longer capable of clicking? Has there been a massive plague of super-arthritis or something among everyone over the age of 18?

I don't have kids and even if I did, I wouldn't care if they stumbled on adult stuff. But I'm also not everyone else and having search filters is a good way to keep the peace. Don't want to use them, just turn them off. When Google added their safe search filter I turned it off once and I've never had to worry about it since.

Policing kids is also not as easy as you think it is. Kids these days are plugged in 24/7 and you can't monitor their every single second on the Internet. Unless of course you don't need to worry about things like work, food, cleaning, sleep, or hygiene.

If the argument here was parents trying to demand that Amazon remove every single book that contained erotica or anything even remotely erotic, then I'd be right there with you. But not one person is talking about that in this discussion. This is about adding a simple filter.

I'm not sure why you seem to think a filter is so draconian. Do you throw a fit every time you see "Safe Search: Off" at the top of your Google search results page? Is the headache of having to disable a filter one time really that big of a deal?


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> Does that mean they are dungeoned?


No, "the dungeon" means the book is adult tagged and will only appear if you're in the erotica section. It's a kind of sideways super secret adult tag used for books with expletives or sexual terms in the name or fitting certain genres.


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## Bishoppess (Apr 11, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> If you want to protect your precious child from porn, keep them off the Internet, because there's porn all over it. All your child has to do is a Google search.


There's a whole song about that 

Although a filter button or a separate way to search for erotica would be nice. Even for the people who would like to search in a genre without twenty naked man chest cluttering up the page. /nod


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

The question keeps getting reframed about kids and porn, but really, it's about the shopping experience. People don't want to go to Amazon and have porn popping up in every possible search. I'm not offended by it, I'm tired of looking at it.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

swolf said:


> Why? What would motivate an erotica author to not label their work as adult, if the system was designed to funnel readers who wanted to see adult material towards books with that label? Why wouldn't they want to target the audience that was most likely to buy their books?


Because the audience "looking" for erotica is much smaller than the audience who will buy erotica as an impulse buy. You have made good points about Amazon's current model. But truthfully, the system is set up now to draw erotica readers to the erotica genre. I guess if we had an adult tag that allowed erotica to sit with all the other books that people want to see, it'd be better, but I still think a lot of books would not self-select as erotica.

I'm not against an adult tag per se, but I just don't believe it would work. But maybe I'm wrong. I do think it's interesting that Amazon, a company that is terrified of bad press, hasn't done something about this yet.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> The question keeps getting reframed about kids and porn, but really, it's about the shopping experience. People don't want to go to Amazon and have porn popping up in every possible search. I'm not offended by it, I'm tired of looking at it.


Thank you.

There are plenty of studies that point out that almost 50% of internet shopping is done at work or on a public computer. This isn't a simple "OMG the kids saw porn!" problem. This is a "Oh, I was checking books on my lunch break and my boss walked by just as "Werewolf Forced Breeding Threesome" popped up on the screen.

And no, the answer is not "Well, they shouldn't be shopping at work." That is juvenile. If the company allows employees to use computers for personal use on their breaks (as mine does) then the employee is doing nothing wrong. The fault is on the retailer for not having a system in place to better control searches.

It isn't just erotica titles. The entire Amazon search is broken. Keyword stuffing in titles, miscategorization, having to jump through hoops to get your book put in the sub-category it should be because it isn't even an OPTION to you in KDP...all of these things make Amazon search ridiculous. This is a bigger problem than "parents should watch their kids." Amazon search has become like Walmart's shelves: a hot mess of nonsense that forces you to dig through junk to find what you want.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

vrabinec said:


> This is an outrage. Kids shouldn't have access to erotica on the internet. They should have to get hand-me-down Playboys from their friends' big brothers like we had to do back in my day. Toughens them up. Gives them an appreciation for it they'll never get if they find it willy nilly on the net.


lol

What I find strange is that Amazon periodically apparently takes down self published erotic books with certain themes, when a search for magazines with the same themes brings up a ton of results that have explicit pictures not just words. And these attacks on the self published books tend to come after a story like this hits the media. (And yes I'm going by what self published erotica writers say, as I have yet to self publish anything myself at this stage.)

I am a mother, but basically when we leave our kids alone with the internet.......yeah......


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## Michael Murray (Oct 31, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> So your positon is that Amazon is not safe for children, and that it's up to parents to restrict their access?


The Internet is not safe for children it's like letting them play on the highway. There are plenty of books with hard violence, cutting, drug use, and horror that would not be touched by a new pornocalypse. Even if you yanked any book with beyond 2nd base scenes I wouldn't let a 12 year old wander the stacks unmonitored.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Briteka said:


> Because the audience "looking" for erotica is much smaller than the audience who will buy erotica as an impulse buy.


I'm curious about what data you used to arrive at that conclusion.

And wouldn't someone who was open to buying erotica on an impulse have the filter set so they can see erotica?


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Thank you.
> 
> There are plenty of studies that point out that almost 50% of internet shopping is done at work or on a public computer. This isn't a simple "OMG the kids saw porn!" problem. This is a "Oh, I was checking books on my lunch break and my boss walked by just as "Werewolf Forced Breeding Threesome" popped up on the screen.
> 
> ...


Amazon should really just drop their own search algo and use Google for the site. I do all my Amazon searching from Google now, and the results actually make sense. Amazon's search algo seems to weight things... stupidly. It's over-complicated, and it makes the search useless. It's nice to take things like sales numbers/review numbers into account, but they shouldn't be given more weight than metadata. You shouldn't have to stuff your titles with 50 keywords just to get Amazon to give them the same weight that any usable search engine does.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

swolf said:


> I'm curious about what data you used to arrive at that conclusion.
> 
> And wouldn't someone who was open to buying erotica on an impulse have the filter set so they can see erotica?


I use my own experience as an erotica writer for four years. The erotica genre exists, and erotica readers can find it, yet the genre is a dead zone for sales. I think a filter might work. I guess there's no harm in trying.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Abderian said:


> A mother has demanded Amazon take action after her 12 year old daughter found erotica from by typing "free Kindle books for teenagers" into the search.
> 
> http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34258918
> 
> I've posted here before about my son also stumbling across this stuff. Is it the writers' fault for the keywords they use? It makes me so frustrated. Surely Amazon can do something to stop this from happening.


Totally agree. I have a teen book for boys - but try typing that in a search . Why they can't just have a separate store for erotica is beyond me. It would even make it easier for those actually looking for erotica .


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I almost never get anything resembling erotica suggested to me, or any other genres I don't read regularly . . . . unless I've recently browsed some titles here for some reason -- titles I don't want to buy, necessarily, but had to check out as part of my moderation duties.   

Usually, after I do that, I edit my browsing history, but I don't always remember. I'm reminded to do so the next time I go to the Zon and find books that I absolutely don't want!  So I do think that your browsing history will be reflected in new searches. I don't have any issues with worrying that someone else will see what I've been looking at . . . I just don't want irrelevant stuff to come up, which is why I periodically clean my browsing history on Amazon.

The other thing you can do is set it so your browsing history is deleted when you leave the web site. Then any 'grown up' searching that's happened shouldn't affect what your kids search. The flip side of that, of course, is that you won't be able to keep your innocuous searches AND you won't have a clue what your kid might be searching when you're not looking -- 'cause it'll delete their activity as well when they close the browser.

I did, on seeing this thread, go to the zon from my account and also anonymously (logged out of my account entirely and went to Zon from another browser) and searched 'free kindle books for teenagers'.  Didn't get anything that seemed inappropriate -- though not everything was free.  (I don't generally browse erotica or anything like that.) (note to self, check browsing history so I'm not suggested teen books the next time I browse.  )

One other note . . . if you're going to use the "-erotica" to exclude such books, be sure NOT to put a space between the dash and the word. Or else you'll get exactly what you DON'T want! 

Bottom line . . . . if your searching routinely returns inappropriate content -- not really that genre or not age appropriate -- I definitely advise sending feedback to Amazon that you'd like them to figure out a way to make it not happen. Send as a CUSTOMER because that's where their focus is. Complaining as a vendor/author/publisher, will not, I'm afraid, be taken with the same level of seriousness.


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## Word Fan (Apr 15, 2015)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> The question keeps getting reframed about kids and porn, but really, it's about the shopping experience. People don't want to go to Amazon [or anywhere] and have porn popping up in every possible search.


This is it, exactly. A not-Internet-savvy friend of mine was trying to find a clothing source with photos for her hard-to-fit sister. Into Google she innocently typed: "big women." She almost choked at what showed up on the screen!


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Briteka said:


> I use my own experience as an erotica writer for four years. The erotica genre exists, and erotica readers can find it, yet the genre is a dead zone for sales.


Erotica is a dead zone for sales?

It's early, but that's got to be the strangest thing I'm going to read all day.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

swolf said:


> Erotica is a dead zone for sales?
> 
> It's early, but that's got to be the strangest thing I'm going to read all day.


Yes, the erotica category is a deadzone compared to other categories. So people get around this by misplacing their erotica books into other categories. The rest of us left erotica behind and started writing erom so we could get out of the category.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

One other note . . . . rather than using the search function, if I'm looking for something in a specific genre, I find it much better to use the categories that show down the left side. So go to kindle books and the 'teen and young adult' category. Best as I can tell, that doesn't include any inappropriate titles. And I don't think it's affected _at all_ by what I may have searched for recently . . . . .

I suspect that this is what they expect most customers to use and that's part of the reason they haven't gone to too much trouble to refine the effectiveness of their search system.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> The question keeps getting reframed about kids and porn, but really, it's about the shopping experience. People don't want to go to Amazon and have porn popping up in every possible search. I'm not offended by it, I'm tired of looking at it.


Depends on your point of view. Yes, I think Amazon should make their shopping experience as comfortable as possible for their customers. However, it's the 'OMG the kids are seeing porn!' news stories that are more likely to cause distributors like Amazon to react by coming down hard on erotica authors.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

swolf said:


> Erotica is a dead zone for sales?
> 
> It's early, but that's got to be the strangest thing I'm going to read all day.


Because Amazon puts some kind of blocks or filters on? I can see it isn't a deadzone, but I know a lot of people and publishers have taken to avoiding it because of filters.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Briteka said:


> Yes, the erotica category is a deadzone compared to other categories. So people get around this by misplacing their erotica books into other categories. The rest of us left erotica behind and started writing erom so we could get out of the category.


So now it's a deadzone compared to something else?

Sorry, but no. Yes, the Romance category gets more eyes on it, but anyone calling Erotica a deadzone for sales is just exposing their ignorance. And it's been explained multiple times in this thread why erotica authors place their erotica books in Romance. It isn't because Erotica is a deadzone for sales.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

swolf said:


> So now it's a deadzone compared to something else?
> 
> Sorry, but no. Yes, the Romance category gets more eyes on it, but anyone calling Erotica a deadzone for sales is just exposing their ignorance. And it's been explained multiple times in this thread why erotica authors place their erotica books in Romance. It isn't because Erotica is a deadzone for sales.


Well, we'll agree to disagree then.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> One other note . . . . rather than using the search function, if I'm looking for something in a specific genre, I find it much better to use the categories that show down the left side. So go to kindle books and the 'teen and young adult' category. Best as I can tell, that doesn't include any inappropriate titles. And I don't think it's affected _at all_ by what I may have searched for recently . . . . .
> 
> I suspect that this is what they expect most customers to use and that's part of the reason they haven't gone to too much trouble to refine the effectiveness of their search system.


I wish it was so, but not in my case. I used to love browsing by category the new stuff coming in future, or just recently. I can't do that anymore now, especially in the romance sub categories. My recommendations are fine as is, I don't get porn there as I don't browse it. I also check on my browsing history once in a while. Its trying to go by categories on the left or typing a specific search/trope in the top of the kindle store. That is when all that stuff comes up, in both of these cases.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

My complaint is mainly about the genuine teen books ending up on page 30 or so of a search and readers looking for these books will have given up trawling through pages of erotica long before they reach them  .


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## Michael Murray (Oct 31, 2011)

Rhayn said:


> Just to clarify, when I upload my latest naughty masterpiece of kink, I select the categories as usually "Erotica" and occasionally "Erotic Romance" - If it is more romance with some sexy times thrown in.
> Does that mean they are dungeoned?
> 
> If I type in keywords for that particular kink then my stuff comes up so it can be found by someone searching for it. What doesn't seem to happen is that anyone searching for something else that might just possibly be related, will have it thrust at them.
> ...


Zombies and bloody covers give my kids horrible screaming nightmares but they like fantasy and scii-if. Please don't put bloody zombie books next to Azimov and Bradbury.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Briteka said:


> Yes, the erotica category is a deadzone compared to other categories. So people get around this by misplacing their erotica books into other categories. The rest of us left erotica behind and started writing erom so we could get out of the category.


And those writers have made browsing a whole lot more difficult for readers who have no interest in erotica books. It's unfair to both authors of non-erotica genres and readers who are trying to look for books and keep getting hit with page after page of erotica titles that have been improperly categorized.

Beyond the children argument, as others have pointed out this is a consumer issue. I'm sick and tired of checking the best-seller lists for superhero books to find them clogged to the brim with shifter and vampire erotica that has no damn business being in that category. As an author of superhero fiction, it makes my books that much harder to find and as a reader it makes it much harder to find books I want to read.

So boo-hoo if the erotica category is a dead zone. I'm not going to shed any tears over that when those authors are sabotaging other genres.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Michael Murray said:


> Zombies and bloody covers give my kids horrible screaming nightmares but they like fantasy and scii-if. Please don't put bloody zombie books next to Azimov and Bradbury.


Zombies, and bloody covers, and guns, and death, and mayhem NEVER upset people as much as sexual images do. At least not in the United States of America.

So don't count on people sharing your concern. Sorry.


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## treesloth5 (Dec 11, 2014)

Perry Constantine said:


> And those writers have made browsing a whole lot more difficult for readers who have no interest in erotica books. It's unfair to both authors of non-erotica genres and readers who are trying to look for books and keep getting hit with page after page of erotica titles that have been improperly categorized.
> 
> Beyond the children argument, as others have pointed out this is a consumer issue. I'm sick and tired of checking the best-seller lists for superhero books to find them clogged to the brim with shifter and vampire erotica that has no damn business being in that category. As an author of superhero fiction, it makes my books that much harder to find and as a reader it makes it much harder to find books I want to read.
> 
> So boo-hoo if the erotica category is a dead zone. I'm not going to shed any tears over that when those authors are sabotaging other genres.


Porn industry in general has had issues since the arrival of the internet because of cheap distribution methods and everyone having a certain capacities as humans, so the competition has increased immensely. Furthermore, this is also the issue I agree in the capacity to poison the well towards both parties. In that one side is trying to survive, while the other is attempting to take advantage of the original system and "play by the original rules set."

I have no issue with innovative tagging, it's something that will adjust as language and preferences change over time. It is only to be expected, however the products that are needed and necessary for the survival of specific authors tend to become deadwood logically without an extreme example. But it also means moving out of a genre if that genre becomes uncompetitive.

The biggest problem is a morality panic, it's something that will make things way worse for everyone in the room. Political correct movement. Drug war. Satanic cults inside of day-care centers out of the 1980's fear? Then we see the government step in, and we all know what happens. Things get way worse. Way, way worse.

I can see having a European review board now for a ratings system....

There was a time whenever in the US around the time that the ESRB and tv ratings system was placed in about extending that to books. Something to consider? I'm naturally against it, but with the technology today it could hypothetically assist in maintaining a better search based system since not everything is going to be "age appropriate" along with specific tags and rankings.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

bpmanuel said:


> Porn industry in general has had issues since the arrival of the internet because of cheap distribution methods and everyone having a certain capacities as humans, so the competition has increased immensely. Furthermore, this is also the issue I agree in the capacity to poison the well towards both parties. In that one side is trying to survive, while the other is attempting to take advantage of the original system and "play by the original rules set."
> 
> I have no issue with innovative tagging, it's something that will adjust as language and preferences change over time. It is only to be expected, however the products that are needed and necessary for the survival of specific authors tend to become deadwood logically without an extreme example. But it also means moving out of a genre if that genre becomes uncompetitive.
> 
> The biggest problem is a morality panic,


The morality panic is what made Amazon decide to dungeon the erotica catagory leading to the rest of what's being discussed.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

Abderian said:


> A mother has demanded Amazon take action after her 12 year old daughter found erotica from by typing "free Kindle books for teenagers" into the search.


When I typed in free teen books just now, all I got was free teen books. *shrug* This is the thing. Maybe her teen was doing some other searching, or someone else in the house had been.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=free+teen+books


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## Cookie Monster (Apr 6, 2014)

Lisa Whitefern said:


> When I typed in free teen books just now, all I got was free teen books. *shrug* This is the thing. Maybe her teen was doing some other searching, or someone else in the house had been.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=free+teen+books


Amazon said in the article that they were "fixing the error" that led to the search results, so it's safe to assume the relevant searches have already been sanitized by some means.

My larger concern with these types of search problems is that when Amazon does act, it'll probably be in a way that damages all indies, like taking away our ability to use keywords or to select categories ourselves. Remember tags?


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Michael Murray said:


> Zombies and bloody covers give my kids horrible screaming nightmares but they like fantasy and scii-if. Please don't put bloody zombie books next to Azimov and Bradbury.


I meant type those genres in separately to get the full list of that genre. I had a phase of reading nothing but Zombie Apocalypse for nearly half a year and a thousand or more of the books - not all completed but at least tried - and typing in Zombie Apocalypse brought just that back. Now its some keyword stuffed erotica and some erotica set in a ZA that I am half hopeful doesn't contain sexy times with the actual zombies.

My own Zombie fiction isnt listed as sci-fi or fantasy so shouldn't come up under that.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Lisa Whitefern said:


> The morality panic is what made Amazon decide to dungeon the erotica catagory leading to the rest of what's being discussed.


Once again, the Erotica category isn't dungeoned. Amazon's adult filter, which is referred to as the dungeon, is applied to SOME books in the erotica category that cross certain lines, like having certain words in their titles or blurbs, or having too much skin on their cover. But it's not an automatic filter that's applied to all books in the Erotica category.

The vast majority of books in the Erotica category don't have the adult filter applied to them, and are just as visible as any other book on Amazon.

For example, if I write an erotic book about a babysitter (as I've been known to do), and place it in the Erotica category, I can't have 'babysitter' in the title or blurb, because that's one of the restricted words. If I do, it gets the adult filter applied, and disappears from most searches, making it practically invisible. Sales dry up.

However, if I use 'sitter' instead of 'babysitter' in the title and blurb, everything is hunky-dory and the adult filter isn't applied. It appears in searches, my readers are happy, and the dollar bills rain down from the sky.

And again, the reason erotica authors are miscategorizing their books into romance, is because Romance doesn't have these restrictions on words. If you put your book in Romance, you can title it, 'My Sister the Virgin Babysitter' (Three 'no-no' words) and the adult filter won't be applied because it's not in the Erotica Category. Since erotica readers seem to love books about virgin babysitters who happen to be someone's sister, the book gets a lot of sales, based on just the title alone.

Of course, it's probably only a matter of time before Amazon cracks down on this, and starts banning books and accounts. But a simple 'Hide Adult Content' checkbox on users' profiles could stop all this insanity.


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

Just as a reminder to those who think having human beings look and judge every book, I've had books dungeoned quite a few times, changed nothing and got them undungeoned. Why?  Because they aren't erotica, but they are gay romance; however, those people who are reviewing books happen to have prejudices that gay = porn.  I've posted the ads here where Google claimed they had adult content, why?  Because it had the word "gay" before romance in them.  We removed the word "gay" and the ads were approved.  Seriously, you do not want low level contractors making determinations about what is and isn't appropriate. 

And as to making the net safe for children, all the violent, scary and other inappropriate horror, scifi, thriller, etc. would need to be ALSO removed from the general search and put behind a filter. Oh, and all those "romance" books that have sex in them, which would be every, single one of them (except the "sweet" stuff) also should be behind the filter.  Your spicy romance or your horror-laden novels are no more appropriate for children than erotica is.  But no one ever thinks about this clearly.  It's only thought about those "pesky" erotica authors who break the rules. Think of all the stepbrother books. That was "mainstream" and allowed despite the ban on pseudo-incest. These things were/are huge sellers. So maybe those searches are working fine.

Kids are going to be exposed to things, parents need to discuss what these things are and prepare their kids in an age appropriate way. 

As to the general search for books, yeah its annoying that things may seem to be mis-categorized, but Amazon created this problem by making the erotica authors use euphemisms, put their works in the dungeon, etc.  If erotica wasn't popular and wanted, erotica authors would stop writing erotica.  People want it, but Amazon seems ashamed to sell it.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

swolf said:


> Once again, the Erotica category isn't dungeoned. Amazon's adult filter, which is referred to as the dungeon, is applied to SOME books in the erotica category that cross certain lines, like having certain words in their titles or blurbs, or having too much skin on their cover. But it's not an automatic filter that's applied to all books in the Erotica category.
> 
> The vast majority of books in the Erotica category don't have the adult filter applied to them, and are just as visible as any other book on Amazon.


Yes I think that must be true looking at erotica catagory rankings, but it's widely misunderstood leading to even popular digital first publishers that deal widely with erotic content avoiding the erotic catagory for their books altogether and placing their very erotic erotic romance books in romance only and not erotica.


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## texrhino (May 28, 2014)

Amazon _is_ taking action, and their choice is to head toward that greasy slope known lovingly as censorship.

This from an email I received this morning from Amazon:
"Our records show that you have not completed the declaration confirming that none of your websites are directed at children under the age of 13. This declaration is a mandatory requirement for participation in the Amazon Associates Program, and as such, your payments have been placed on hold as of August 31, 2015. On October 31, 2015, your account will be closed if your declaration has not been completed. "

Amazon's position is wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start. But I believe the solution lies in three steps: 1) American voters, stop voting with your butts, dis-elect the in-crowd, and take back control of our government from the filthy rich; 2) pressure newly elected representatives to ramp up the Federal Trade Commission to its earlier power, especially as it relates to antitrust law; and 3) break up Amazon (and a long list of others) to re-introduce competition. This would at least tone down the arrogant abuse by mega-companies that is becoming the hallmark of 21st century commerce.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

X. Aratare said:


> Just as a reminder to those who think having human beings look and judge every book, I've had books dungeoned quite a few times, changed nothing and got them undungeoned. Why? Because they aren't erotica, but they are gay romance; however, those people who are reviewing books happen to have prejudices that gay = porn. I've posted the ads here where Google claimed they had adult content, why? Because it had the word "gay" before romance in them. We removed the word "gay" and the ads were approved. Seriously, you do not want low level contractors making determinations about what is and isn't appropriate.


Did you change it to male/male or something of that sort? I've noticed a lot of unhappy people trying to self publish gay romance without luck, and yet all the top selling gay romance is now self published, so some people know the tricks I guess.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> Totally agree. I have a teen book for boys - but try typing that in a search . Why they can't just have a separate store for erotica is beyond me. It would even make it easier for those actually looking for erotica .


I typed in "teen book for boys" and only got teen books for boys. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=teen+book+for+boys

Apart from the last book which looks more like a teen book for girls. *shrug*


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

Lisa Whitefern said:


> Did you change it to male/male or something of that sort? I've noticed a lot of unhappy people trying to self publish gay romance without luck, and yet all the top selling gay romance is now self published, so some people know the tricks I guess.


I changed nothing actually. I argued successfully over half a dozen times that the books were NOT porn, that the only possible reason they were dungeoned is that they were gay romance and that it was discriminatory. I demanded they be taken out of the dungeon and they were. We follow the rules and DON'T publish the stuff that crosses Amazon's TOS, but instead have it in our own store (Volume 6 of the manga that's in my sig is sold on the store and not Amazon because of this) so I felt confident in what I was saying. Thankfully, the second reviewer in all cases agreed. But I have to check my books every day. It sucks.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

texrhino said:


> Amazon _is_ taking action, and their choice is to head toward that greasy slope known lovingly as censorship.
> 
> This from an email I received this morning from Amazon:
> "Our records show that you have not completed the declaration confirming that none of your websites are directed at children under the age of 13. This declaration is a mandatory requirement for participation in the Amazon Associates Program, and as such, your payments have been placed on hold as of August 31, 2015. On October 31, 2015, your account will be closed if your declaration has not been completed. "
> ...


This has nothing to do with censorship. If has to do with selling to minors. You got this I presume because you have an affiliate account. The law requires sites that market to minors to meet certain criteria regarding the information they collect. This has NOTHING to do with censorship.


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## Michael Murray (Oct 31, 2011)

Rhayn said:


> I meant type those genres in separately to get the full list of that genre. I had a phase of reading nothing but Zombie Apocalypse for nearly half a year and a thousand or more of the books - not all completed but at least tried - and typing in Zombie Apocalypse brought just that back. Now its some keyword stuffed erotica and some erotica set in a ZA that I am half hopeful doesn't contain sexy times with the actual zombies.
> 
> My own Zombie fiction isnt listed as sci-fi or fantasy so shouldn't come up under that.


Just typed zombie apocalypse in Amazon search and got back a page full of....zombie apocalypse. My guess is the kid searched for something more exciting but told mom he didn't when she saw his screen. 12 year olds shouldn't browse the Internet unattended, the might find zombie apocalypse and never be the same....


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

X. Aratare said:


> We follow the rules and DON'T publish the stuff that crosses Amazon's TOS


That's kind of hard to do when they don't really have any actual content rules in their TOS:

https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2TOZW0SV7IR1U



> Content Guidelines
> 
> Your books and other content (such as book titles, cover art and product descriptions) must adhere to these content guidelines. We reserve the right to make judgments about whether content is appropriate and to choose not to offer it. We may also terminate your participation in the KDP program if you don't adhere to these content guidelines.
> 
> ...


As erotica authors have discovered, Amazon's content rules are whatever they want them to be.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Michael Murray said:


> Just typed zombie apocalypse in Amazon search and got back a page full of....zombie apocalypse. My guess is the kid searched for something more exciting but told mom he didn't when she saw his screen. 12 year olds shouldn't browse the Internet unattended, the might find zombie apocalypse and never be the same....


Or maybe the problem was that Mom or Dad had previously looked at adult content, and Amazon's algorithms don't differentiate between who is doing the search? People forget that Amazon is an account specific search. Unless the parents have a separate account for the child, the algorithms are going to be based on everything searched for. So yes, it is perfectly possible the kid could get back adult products while looking for something else based on the entire account's activity.

For the longest time, I had Amazon's search returning nothing but romance titles. And I've never bought a romance title in my life. Then I remember that sometimes when people here ask questions about their covers, blurbs, etc I click those links. Those clicks become part of Amazon's algorithm and impact my search. So I have to remember to make sure I am logged out of my Amazon account and clear cookies to avoid my search getting screwy.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> Or maybe the problem was that Mom or Dad had previously looked at adult content, and Amazon's algorithms don't differentiate between who is doing the search? People forget that Amazon is an account specific search. Unless the parents have a separate account for the child, the algorithms are going to be based on everything searched for. So yes, it is perfectly possible the kid could get back adult products while looking for something else based on the entire account's activity.
> 
> For the longest time, I had Amazon's search returning nothing but romance titles. And I've never bought a romance title in my life. Then I remember that sometimes when people here ask questions about their covers, blurbs, etc I click those links. Those clicks become part of Amazon's algorithm and impact my search. So I have to remember to make sure I am logged out of my Amazon account and clear cookies to avoid my search getting screwy.


Just cleaning up your Amazon browsing history should fix it . . . . go to your recently viewed items, usually near the bottom of the page, and you can remove any that you don't want to count as part of what they use to recommend stuff to you.


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## Desert Rose (Jun 2, 2015)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> The question keeps getting reframed about kids and porn, but really, it's about the shopping experience. People don't want to go to Amazon and have porn popping up in every possible search. I'm not offended by it, I'm tired of looking at it.


This. I like smut; I write it and I read it. But not every search needs to contain smut. Sometimes, I want violence instead.


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## E.R.Baine (Mar 17, 2013)

> It's up to parents to monitor their children.


Not exactly. But it does fall on the parents shoulders to keep an eye on them. Kids can get their own account. Aside from that, I can't vent further on this:

STOP GIVING YOUR KIDS YOUR CELL PHONE TO USE ON THEIR OWN TIME WITHOUT WATCHING THEM.

I'm sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine that I always argue with my sister about. I have a young nephew, and he has to use my cell next to me. The computer is in a place where we can see him at all times. Not just because of Amazon. He is not allowed to use youtube with the chromecast by himself either. Or the Fire tablet. Technology is not perfect, stop leaving your kids alone to browse websites on their own. They will always, always, always come across something that is not for their eyes. And it is not always the person who puts it up on the internet fault. My nephew used to do a search for spongebob squarepants and he would come across stuff that would make my eyes melt, and I write gay porn. Even a search for scooby-doo is fatalistic.

When you are with them your job is to notice that they come across something bad and tell them not to click on it, it is not for kids. That is your job as a parent/caregiver. For you to be p*ssed about this means you don't monitor your kids when they use the internet/amazon/facebook and that in itself is a bad habit.

When I see a video that is not for kids but has images that kids would like on youtube but it has a lot of cursing and the f word, I click the report it button, but I don't get p*ssed off at google for the thing falling through the cracks. It is my job, as an aunty, to monitor my nephew when he uses my cell phone. If I'm too tired or don't want to deal with it, I don't give him my cell phone. Stop expecting ai (google, amazon and website search algorithms) to do all the work for you. I hate seeing kids under the age of 16 on their own tablets and phones by themselves. Yes, I did write 16! And if they are 14 and up and have their own phone, you should get software to spy on them, end of discussion.


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## 80508 (Oct 27, 2014)

Safe search or such on Amazon might be a good idea. However, if the kid is surfing the web without a parent hovering over their shoulder, well, they've seen more than racy words on a page and pics of some dude's abs...


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## X. Aratare (Feb 5, 2013)

swolf said:


> That's kind of hard to do when they don't really have any actual content rules in their TOS:
> 
> https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A2TOZW0SV7IR1U
> 
> As erotica authors have discovered, Amazon's content rules are whatever they want them to be.


Actually, you're right. I over simplified. I guess we take a very conservative view on what constitutes a violation of the TOS (we don't make porn, but I figure they find the very idea of gay romance icky so actual men kissing, making loved, naked? gasp, hack, THINK OF THE CHILDREN), but goodness knows that might not be enough. There are no rules really, which allows them to have maximum room to block stuff.


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## Jessie Jasen (May 30, 2015)

I completely agree with the mother mentioned in the original post. 
I mean, if I had a 12 year-old teenager, I wouldn't worry about my daughter watching online porn vids with her friends of people engaging in abnormal sex that you didn't think was anatomically possible, or her being exposed to porn ads on the internet. Nope. I'd be upset about her bumping into a book with a half-naked dude on the cover on Amazon.

And then, I'd inform the national media about this incident and have them write an article about this immorality…


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

Due to this thread, I've gone to Zon and done a number of searches using search words I've used in the past. Today, I'm getting far less erotica than I'm used to seeing. Such searches as:
Urban Fantasy, New Adult Romance, Contemporary Romance, are actually returning books in those categories with only an occasional 35-page "book" with a title longer than the content. 

Could it be that they're working on cleaning up their search?


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

I just checked my browsing history per Ann's suggestion and it seems to have been wiped. I've got three books on there--my own that I checked this morning.

Anyone else seeing the same?

Rue


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Lisa Whitefern said:


> I typed in "teen book for boys" and only got teen books for boys. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=teen+book+for+boys
> 
> Apart from the last book which looks more like a teen book for girls. *shrug*


They seem to have cleaned up the first pages quite a lot, but I still found 'Fifty waves of passion' on page 5 and other Bad Boy stories, plus some romances and Dirty Country Love - a stepbrother romance and one that clearly states in uppercase EROTICA on page 11. Stopped browsing there.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> They seem to have cleaned up the first pages quite a lot, but I still found 'Fifty waves of passion' on page 5 and other Bad Boy stories, plus some romances and Dirty Country Love - a stepbrother romance and one that clearly states in uppercase EROTICA on page 11. Stopped browsing there.


A better search algo would be able to knock most of that stuff out for people that don't want to see it. The problem is that creating a good search algo isn't easy. Not everyone can be Google.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

E.R.Baine said:


> I'm sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine that I always argue with my sister about. I have a young nephew, and he has to use my cell next to me. The computer is in a place where we can see him at all times. Not just because of Amazon. He is not allowed to use youtube with the chromecast by himself either. Or the Fire tablet. Technology is not perfect, stop leaving your kids alone to browse websites on their own. They will always, always, always come across something that is not for their eyes. And it is not always the person who puts it up on the internet fault. My nephew used to do a search for spongebob squarepants and he would come across stuff that would make my eyes melt, and I write gay porn. Even a search for scooby-doo is fatalistic.


There's no way to put all that back into the box.

If you don't imprison your kids, home school them, and forbid every single contact with other kids, your control over this is zero. Because their friends will have tablets and smartphones, and they will do those searches and they will access free porn galore.

Either you teach them about porn, explain about it in a neutral manner, and show them that it is pure fantasy, as much as for instance Fast & Furious or Superman is, and help them deal with it, or you allow porn to dictate how they view sexuality and their future partners.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Nic said:


> There's no way to put all that back into the box.
> 
> If you don't imprison your kids, home school them, and forbid every single contact with other kids, your control over this is zero. Because their friends will have tablets and smartphones, and they will do those searches and they will access free porn galore.
> 
> Either you teach them about porn, explain about it in a neutral manner, and show them that it is pure fantasy, as much as for instance Fast & Furious or Superman is, and help them deal with it, or you allow porn to dictate how they view sexuality and their future partners.


Nic, there's a lot of things you post that I don't agree with, but I ABSOLUTELY agree with you here. Thank you.

And for all these people who have a problem with children seeing sexual images, if you have kids, I hope you intend to have a conversation about sex with your children before they get to be teenagers if you haven't already.

I hope you're not one of these parents who plans on avoiding the subject, because if you are, you're not doing your children any favors. Sex is a part of life. Stop pretending that it's not.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> Nic, there's a lot of things you post that I don't agree with, but I ABSOLUTELY agree with you here. Thank you.
> 
> And for all these people who have a problem with children seeing sexual images, if you have kids, I hope you intend to have a conversation about sex with your children before they get to be teenagers if you haven't already.
> 
> I hope you're not one of these parents who plans on avoiding the subject, because if you are, you're not doing your children any favors. Sex is a part of life. Stop pretending that it's not.


I actually agree with this as well. My conservative, devout Mormon parents taught me about sex well before I was 10. I had a pretty good idea of what porn was long before I first encountered it.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

puppy.gif said:


> Why do that when we can just look at facts?
> 
> As I sit here and type these words, briefly looking away from the ocean view that so often inspires my work, the #1 bestseller in the Erotica category sits at rank #68 in the Kindle Store.
> 
> ...


Actually, I'm seeing the #1 bestseller in the Erotica category sitting at #8 in the Kindle Store:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/10141/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_3



















And I'm seeing the #100 selling Erotica book sitting at #2,769 in the Paid Kindle Store.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> This has nothing to do with censorship. If has to do with selling to minors. You got this I presume because you have an affiliate account. The law requires sites that market to minors to meet certain criteria regarding the information they collect. This has NOTHING to do with censorship.


How did you know you were in the dungeon?


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Well shoot, a lot of 12 year-olds are more sophisticated users of the internet than I am--let alone their parents. I can't really relate to all of the handwringing over this stuff, simply because there's nothing short of internet abstinence that you can do to keep kids from accidentally or intentionally coming across porn online.

Worrying about Amazon is a real forest for the trees type situation. Even if you look over your kids' shoulders every time they're using the internet in your presence, do they have friends with internet access? Schools? Libraries? Do they ever leave your sight?

Amazon sells smut. It's kind of their job--one of their jobs, anyway. I'm not sure why we're shocked or why we're singling them out for violating a trust that isn't held sacred in any sense across most of the internet.


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## geronl (May 7, 2015)

Jolie du Pre said:


> I hope you're not one of these parents who plans on avoiding the subject, because if you are, you're not doing your children any favors. Sex is a part of life. Stop pretending that it's not.


Also need to warn them that many adults have no problem corrupting them sexually


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

geronl said:


> Also need to warn them that many adults have no problem corrupting them sexually


I've met adults who haven't learned that yet. Do everybody a favor: don't raise your daughter to think, at 28 years old, that an older man asking her out for a drink just wants to be her pal.


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## Lisa5 (Oct 23, 2012)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> They seem to have cleaned up the first pages quite a lot, but I still found 'Fifty waves of passion' on page 5 and other Bad Boy stories, plus some romances and Dirty Country Love - a stepbrother romance and one that clearly states in uppercase EROTICA on page 11. Stopped browsing there.


What teenage boy is going to pay 5 or 11?


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Are we really going to sit here and argue over which _page_ of search results these things pop up in? Maybe your search terms are slightly different. I'm pretty sure Jan isn't just making these things up.


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## Dolphin (Aug 22, 2013)

Comparing notes on search results is generally useless anyway, since they vary by user. Even if you eliminate _every single variable_ and start with complete tabula rasa computers, accounts, IPs, &c., you could still get different search results because of changes to Amazon's catalog, changes to items in the catalog, an update to their cache, an update to the algos, an A/B test of different results...the list goes on endlessly.

This applies equally to other search engines, like Google. Folks need to abandon the idea that search results are an objective, unchanging thing. They're completely fluid.


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## Bishoppess (Apr 11, 2015)

Nic said:


> There's no way to put all that back into the box.
> 
> If you don't imprison your kids, home school them...


 The homeschooled kid is going to raise her hand here. My mom is a nurse. I got the most clinical, abbreviated description of how things worked you've ever heard of. I completed the "guilty" portion of my sex ed by reading books far above my reading level and fanfic. Hello fanfic. And it wasn't that sex was taboo, it was just...not something I think they thought about. If I'd acted like I wanted to date I'm sure there would have been more of a talk. But I was never locked away from society and beaten over the head with doctrine. Please, will people STOP equating homeschoolers with ignorant yokels?.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Bishoppess said:


> The homeschooled kid is going to raise her hand here. My mom is a nurse. I got the most clinical, abbreviated description of how things worked you've ever heard of. I completed the "guilty" portion of my sex ed by reading books far above my reading level and fanfic. Hello fanfic. And it wasn't that sex was taboo, it was just...not something I think they thought about. If I'd acted like I wanted to date I'm sure there would have been more of a talk. But I was never locked away from society and beaten over the head with doctrine. Please, will people STOP equating homeschoolers with ignorant yokels?.


I know. My son was home schooled because the school in our district was bad. He's now in college. He turned out fine.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

Bishoppess said:


> Please, will people STOP equating homeschoolers with ignorant yokels?.


And could you please cease to wildly interpret what I say, or put words in my mouth which weren't there to start with? I really dislike that.

I simply pointed out that UNLESS you keep your child entirely secluded from any outward influence whatsoever - school included - you have no say at all over what they will see. You can watch what they do at home until you're blue in the face, the moment they leave your house, the world wide web is wide open to them via their friends' access.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Lisa Whitefern said:


> What teenage boy is going to pay 5 or 11?


We used to club together to buy stuff 

My complaint is that you have to trawl through loads of books you DON'T want in order to find the few that interest you. When I wanted to compare the covers, titles and blurbs of competing books I had to wade through pages of books that were obviously not Hardy Boys-type adventures (unless the Hardy Boys have changed somewhat) to find what I was looking for. Readers who are just browsing would have given up after the first few pages.


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## Censored (Oct 31, 2014)

"This needs to stop happening."

I agree, self-righteous parents need to stop complaining about unsupervised children finding porn on the internet.


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## Melisse (Jun 3, 2012)

Lol, why don't kids just learn to read dirty fanfics for free? There are even online converters to turn them into epubs or mobi files. Mom will never know.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

puppy.gif said:


> The ranks change all the time and probably appear to be different for different people.
> 
> The apparent purpose of your post is to say that my facts are incorrect, but they were correct to the best of my knowledge and ability. I cannot control the accuracy of the data Amazon is showing me.
> 
> So if not to say my facts are incorrect, why did you make this post? Since you offer no opinion of your own in the post, I'm forced to speculate as to your purpose.


Yes, I posted it to show your numbers were inaccurate (and provided proof.)

And I saw no opinion in your post either, other than speculation about things you're not aware of.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

locking for mod conference. . . 

I feel like there are several different discussions now going on, only peripherally related to the original post. . . . and in all cases it seems like mostly people just want to state their case rather than listening to anyone else.  I'm not sure there's much value in the thread continuing as it is . . . . and I'd rather it not devolve into a bunch of brawls.


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