After being informed that Amazon.com has been fudging the reviews of Cindy Sheehan’s new book, IMAO reader TJ dropped them a line:
NICKNAME: TJ
COMMENTS: Just so you know a conservative blog is keeping track of all the 1 star reviews of Cindy Sheehan’s book you are deleting from the web page selling her book.
She received the following reply, which may or may not have been edited to comply with IMAO guidelines:
Greetings from Amazon.com.
Thank you for bringing these reviews to our attention. Each of the reviews mentioned in your e-mail message have been read by a member of our Communities team.
Any of the reviews that we found to be outside our guidelines have either been edited to bring them within our guidelines or have been slated for removal. Any changes made to these reviews will become effective online in 3-5 business days.
Meanwhile, we at Amazon.com would like to reward your dilligence. If you will provide us with your home address, we can send over our team of Amazon.com “Safety Specialists” to perform a free inspection of your house. Did you know that natural gas leaks are the #1 cause of residential explosions? When our team of large, Italian men gets to your door, invite them in and listen VERY carefully to the “safety tips” they offer.
Because that’s a real nice home you got there, and it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it. Don’t you agree?
Again, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to let us know about this. Feedback from conscientious individuals such as yourself helps us maintain the quality and integrity of our site.
Thank you for your interest in Amazon.com.
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=aqhtgvwr3403743366
If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=ENEMIES.LIST/EXTERMINATE
Best regards,
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com
Hmmm… I guess that explains those guys outside my house fixing the gas line.
So if one of the terms is that you’re not supposed to refer to other reviews – why is the J.L. Larsen review still up? For that matter, there is at least one review for nearly every product that refers to another review – are they going to clear those out too?
LOL! Now you know why I pay ‘insurance’ fees to Amazon. I don’t want anything… bad… to happen.
//Meanwhile, we at Amazon.com would like to reward your dilligence. If you will provide us with your home address, we can send over our team of Amazon.com “Safety Specialists” to perform a free inspection of your house. Did you know that natural gas leaks are the #1 cause of residential explosions? When our team of large, Italian men gets to your door, invite them in and listen VERY carefully to the “safety tips” they offer.
Because that’s a real nice home you got there, and it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it. Don’t you agree?//
HAHAHAHAHAH, ROFLMAO!! Thank you for using this Harvey, my kids got a kick out of that. Yes, I’m training them to be good conservatives. As for the big Italian guys, I guess I’d have to get MY big Italian guy to kick their nerdy Amazon butts.
TEEEEEEJ
I wonder if its not amazon.com but the readers of the reviews reporting them…
It actually goes both ways. I posted a four star review of Michelle Malkin’s latest book, Unhinged.
It disappeared after a couple of days.
I think I detect a leftward bias here.
Come on guys, you missed the totally reasonable explanation lurking in the heart of Amazon’s response:
“Any of the reviews that we found to be outside our guidelines have either been edited to bring them within our guidelines or have been slated for removal.”
Obviously Amazon deleted those entries because they used standard, right-leaning italics instead of the reverseitalic font Amazon now wants to see. (For those who don’t understand the term – reverseitalic font leans to the left). Unfortunately, honest comments like “Condy Sheehan’s book sucked worse than the meningitis I had last month” don’t translate into reverseitalic. The programmers just can’t make that statement lean to the left.