John,

Amazon is the world’s biggest bookseller, but we all know Amazon’s not really a book company—it’s a data & surveillance company. They do a lot of questionable things to try and grow their monopoly power, and this one is extra awful.

After reading about Amazon’s discriminatory search algorithm,¹ we analyzed various lists of 2020 books by diverse authors. The results? Up to 70% had a free-with-subscription book by a white writer promoted above them in the search results.²

Sign our petition to demand an investigation into Amazon's discriminatory book search:

TAKE ACTION

By promoting Kindle Unlimited books in top-line ads tailored to pique the interest of readers searching for a non-Kindle Unlimited title, the world’s largest bookstore frequently displays 3 or more works of white, often less-popular authors before showing the searched-for book.

Amazon’s discriminatory marketing tactics have a sick sort of logic given their business model—they want to capture as many readers as possible in their Kindle and Audible products, so that they can surveil their customers and leverage that data.³ So, they’re promoting Kindle Unlimited authors at the expense of whoever a customer is actually searching for. Especially at the expense of diverse authors—because, like publishing itself, Kindle Unlimited is a rather undiverse place.⁴

Reader’s interests barely scratch the surface of data Amazon collects. Their Kindle, Audible, and Goodreads products track everything—from page turns, highlights, and breaks, to what books readers finish, who they share them with, when and where they read, and much more.⁵

Sign this petition to demand an investigation into Amazon turning interest away from diverse writers so that it can “replace a library card with a credit card.”⁶

Thanks so much.

Lia & the team at ❤️Fight

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Footnotes:

1. ReadersFirst eLending Position Paper: https://librarianship.ca/news/readersfirst-elending-paper/

2. Fight for the Future: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2021-03-16-amazon-prioritizes-free-books-by-white-people/

3. The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117217/amazon-kindle-tracking-page-turn-taps-e-reader-privacy-policy-security-whispersync

4. Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2020/01/31/diversity-in-publishing-hasnt-improved-in-the-past-4-years/?sh=776410685c41

5. The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/amazon-kindle-data-reading-tracking-privacy

6. The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/10/amazon-library-ebook-monopoly/

 

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