Amazon hevder det ikke var politisk sensur, men tekniske problemer som gjorde at bøker om homoseksualitet falt ut av søkelistene. Det var for øvrig en rekke andre temaer som også ble rammet, til sammen 57.000 titler. Men Amazon ønsker ikke å utdype hva feilen besto i.

«This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error,» Drew Herdener, spokesman for the online retailer, wrote in a statement.

«It has been misreported that the issue was limited to gay- and lesbian-themed titles,» he said. «In fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as health, mind and body, reproductive and sexual medicine, and erotica.»

Herdener did not respond to requests to clarify the cause of the error, nor about why works such as the «Milk» pictorial — which did not appear to be listed in any of the categories mentioned by Amazon — may have been removed from the search listings.

Amazon blames book-search glitch on ‘cataloging error’