Re: Amazon is stupid, but it turns out they didn't do it on purpose.
(Sorry, you're going to get this twice because my first response was posted from the wrong account. Oops...)

Thanks for the link. There's also a post from someone who tested the theory and found it a bit wanting. Even he agrees, though, that it's plausible if the now-closed security holes the troll described were still in place at the time of the alleged trolling. So, yeah, even if it didn't happen, it *could* have happened, which is kind of the issue.

Frankly, if it is a troll then I suppose he deserves some thanks for bringing the whole issue of adult filtering to broader attention. :) I don't think that Amazon are conscious bigots, but I do think that they screwed this up by the initial claim that Probst's book was filtered because it was adult--which was ridiculous. They admitted that they had this policy at the same moment that they demonstrated that they weren't implementing it correctly or fairly, and *then* expected that people would accept the "glitch" explanation when Amazon realized the scope of the problem. Not good.

Their second automated reply, which I haven't yet posted, does a little better in the "we screwed up" department, which is something, but it still doesn't address the issue of filtering content. And now that I *do* know about it, I'm still peeved at them. It's reassuring that this isn't some kind of deliberate campaign, but it's still, as you say, maddening that they're directing my book searches based on what they think is proper. Grr.