There is a fascinating story over at the superb Legal Insurrection site: “Amazon demonetizes conservative website (us),” by William A. Jacobson. Jacobson explains how Legal Insurrection’s “participation in Amazon Associates [was] terminated without warning, with false and shifting explanations”: “On Saturday morning, April 28, 2018, I woke up to an email in my inbox from Amazon Associates telling me our participation in the program was terminated, our account closed, that the decision was final and there was no appeal. On top of that, Amazon was holding back any accumulated money it owed us. There was no prior indication of a problem, or chance to cure.”
Jacobson concludes: “Now that the month-long futile process of seeking reinstatement is over, it is clear to me that someone at Amazon wanted us gone. Amazon Associates came up with false explanations as to our alleged violation of the Operating Agreement, then additional false explanations, and at the very end a new explanation that was previously resolved 5 months ago to Amazon’s satisfaction.”
The same thing happened to Jihad Watch back in 2014. The wholesale effort to marginalize and silence voices that dissent from the Leftist agenda was not as obvious then as it is now, and at the time I thought the whole thing was just one of those inexplicable and unfortunate mistakes that happen sometimes. Now, after seeing Amazon’s explanation last fall of what happened (see below) and reading Legal Insurrection’s post, I realize that it was far more insidious.
On July 31, 2014, I received this email:
Hello.
We are writing to notify you that we have terminated your Amazon Associates Program Operating Agreement and closed your Associates Program account. You will not receive further payment of advertising fees. We have taken this step because you are not in compliance with the Operating Agreement that governs your participation in the Associates Program.
You are not in compliance with Participation Requirement Number 26(https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/help/operating/participation) because you are sending traffic indirectly to the Amazon site via automatic redirection from another web site.
You can find the complete terms of the Operating Agreement and its Schedules via this link: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement.
We insist that you immediately stop this activity and remove all Amazon content, including Special Links, from your site(s). Any other accounts you have or may open in the future may be closed and you will not receive any advertising fees. We reserve all other rights and claims we may have.
Warmest Regards,
Yes, “warmest regards.” Anyway, I didn’t have the vaguest idea of what I was talking about, and wasn’t doing what they accused me of doing, so I wrote back:
I think this is an error on your part. To the best of my knowledge, I am not sending traffic indirectly to Amazon from an automatic redirect. Nor am I attempting “to intercept or redirect (including via software installed on users’ computers) traffic from or on, or divert advertising fees from, any site that participates in the Program.”
Is any appeal possible?
I got this response on August 4, 2014:
Hello.
As previously stated, you have not complied with the Associates Program Operating Agreement that governs participation in the Associates Program and therefore your account was closed.
You can find the complete terms of the Operating Agreement, including the Linking Requirements and Participation Requirements, via this link: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement.
We have confirmed that the decision to close your Associates Program account and withhold fees is final, and you are no longer eligible to participate in the Associates Program. Any other accounts you have or may open in the future may be closed and advertising fees withheld without further notice.
Because this decision is final, further requests to review your account for reinstatement will not receive a response.
Thank you for your understanding.
Did I solve your problem?
Yes NoYour feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.
Thank you.
That was that. Then in August 2017, the Left-fascist site ProPublica published a lengthy hit piece on Jihad Watch and others. Fascist “journalist” Lauren Kirchner went to various platforms, including Amazon, and pressured them to disallow us to use them on the grounds that we were a “hate group,” as designated by the discredited hard-Left propaganda smear group, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The article said:
Until recently [yeah, three years before this article was written], Amazon allowed Jihad Watch to participate in a program that promised a cut of any book sales that the site generated. All three companies have policies that say they don’t do business with hate groups.
Jihad Watch is one of many sites that monetize their extremist views through relationships with technology companies….
Amazon spokeswoman Angie Newman said the company had previously removed Jihad Watch and three other sites identified by ProPublica from its program sharing revenue for book sales, which is called Amazon Associates. When ProPublica pointed out that the sites still carried working links to the program, she said that it was their responsibility to remove the code. “They are no longer paid as an Associate regardless of what links are on their site once we remove them from the Associates Program,” she said.
The clear implication is that Amazon removed Jihad Watch from the Associates program because we’re supposedly a “hate group.” But you’ll notice that in its correspondence with me, Amazon said nothing of the kind, and instead proffered gobbledygook about how we were “sending traffic indirectly to the Amazon site via automatic redirection from another web site,” which we weren’t actually doing.
The same thing just happened with Legal Insurrection: as you can see from Jacobson’s article, they didn’t come out and say that they were axing Legal Insurrection for being conservative. Instead, they offered the same false accusations of misuse of their program, with no chance to appeal, that they offered me.
It’s clear what Amazon is doing, and it’s clear that they’ve been doing it for years. But they don’t even have the integrity to own up to it, and instead try to conceal it in a blizzard of Kafkaesque false charges, in which they play judge, jury and executioner.
They need to be called out for what they’re doing, which is why I’m writing this post now, even though Jihad Watch was dropped from the Associates program nearly four years ago. Legal Insurrection and Jihad Watch should be reinstated to the Associates program, and the Amazon charities program should be opened up to 501c3 organizations that are currently banned from it (including Jihad Watch) on spurious “hate” charges. You’ll notice that I still have Amazon links all over the site. That’s because Amazon is essentially a monopoly today; there is no viable alternative except Barnes & Noble, and they’re no better. But Amazon’s monopoly status is all the more reason why this unjust and unequal treatment must stop, or Amazon must be broken up in accord with anti-trust laws.
St. Manuel II Palailogos says
Jeff Bezos is disgusting. He won’t pay a little more to help homeless people, and he won’t stop jihad terror.
Infidel says
HEAR HEAR and a top class Dhimmi too..
Infidel says
Hear hear a million times..
Rob Crawford says
You’re talking about the Seattle “head tax”? That would never have helped any “homeless people”. It would have just created more.
Lydia Church says
Can you explain how it would have created more?
I’m not being sarcastic, I really don’t know as I don’t live there and am curious about how that works.
Thanks.
brenrod says
bezos and amazon are cia deep state shadow fronts.
Mike says
Bezos , the man who bought Washington Post 250 $ , then received a 350 millions contract from our dear Hussein O. Then , Bezos gave again to Barry 2012 campaign . Then he received a CIA deal : 20 millions per year for 20 years if he publish CIA propaganda articles under WAPO ” journalists ” signature , especialy , North Korean propaganda so to keep tensions in south China sea . ( There is alot of money to make selling weapons to South Korea , Philippines, Japan , China , Russia and others if North Korea has the atomic bomb given to them by the Clintons. Wow !
+ Bezos , the man who signed a deal with Obama the great , again. This time it is a kickback from US postal services for each parcel Amazon make them delivers .
But Bezos double the deal with UPS too. So he get paid twice . Think about it next time you have a ” free delivery “!
David says
This is why I use the Kobo ereader – I don’t trust Amazon i hope your new book is on the Kobo.
David Longfellow says
Liberals will be liberal. The best response is to buy nothing from them and otherwise financially oppose everything associated with them. For all their posturing, all they really care about is money and power.
RonaldB says
What concerns me personally most of all is the possibility that Amazon may in the future decide it doesn’t want to be associated with certain books. They have, in the past, deleted books bought from them and stored by them, and refunded the purchase price. This obviously would cost the user much more in convenience and loss of information than the purchase price.
Actually, in law, being a monopoly is legal, but you cannot use your monopolistic advantage to influence the market. Amazon is not a monopoly, but an oligopoly, or duopoly, since there are clearly competitors, though not of the same size. I think Amazon would be vulnerable to a massive class action suit for acting as a monopoly by accepting accounts and then deleting them for clearly public purposes. And denying it. I sniff an opportunity for hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and compensation for an enterprising, but struggling lawyer.
My strong calculation is that we should begin getting used to alternative, pay-for-play, means of communication and dissemination of information. We’re clearly dealing with huge globalist companies with no particular scruples or ethics. The sooner we divest dependence on them, the better.
Cicero says
This is more than disconcerting news. I have been visiting this website for more than 10 years.
Robert Spencer does not make personal attacks on Muslims. Hw writes the truth about Islam. The Left is complicit in the destruction of free speech and in the weakening and collapse of Western Civilization
Robert please do not despair . You are on the side of truth and empowerment.
In the end Truth will rise. However it might take longer than originally envisaged.
The Force WILL be with you !
Grrrrr... says
I hate Jeff Bezos! Those black eyes spook me out.
A couple of news headlines:
Big Brother Amazon Remotely Deletes Purchased Copies of 1984 and Animal Farm From Thousands of Kindles (on gizmodo) – now isn’t that ironic?
Amazon v Seattle: 7,000 jobs under threat
Amazon’s Bezos earns more in 5 days than most could in 5 lifetimes
Surveillance state? Amazon selling facial recognition technology to gov
Amazon workers pee into bottles out of fear of being punished
Trump slams Amazon for killing local retail & jobs
Amazon chief under fire for space travel plans as workers struggle
‘Immoral’ business: Google, Starbucks, Amazon grilled over UK tax
Trump: Amazon pays little or no taxes & puts thousands of retailers out
Amazon workers treated like ‘animals’ in exhausting working
Amazon admits Alexa could be hacked and turned into spy device
Der Krieg und die Cloud: Amazon soll Pentagon-Daten verwalten
“Ausbeuter Amazon”: Proteste gegen Jeff Bezos in Berlin
J D S says
Just “Delete” Amazon!
somehistory says
Just take a good look at his eyes. They are a window to his soul.
souare says
Same as Zuckerberg?
Ross Lloyd says
On the flip side Amazon market my anti-jihad novels “Soul Saviour”, “Get Emily”, “For Anastasia” & “AS DARKNESS DESCENDS”…
Yohanan says
How to counter this market disenfranchisement of Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch books? I would cancel my recently tried Prime subscription (also because of Amazon’s reported predatory business model and rough labor relations). — However, I see I already paid a year fee.
Maybe to send them a message of protest. — But their contact menu doesn’t have a comment option in miscellaneous other issues.
Well, at least to find some amazon forum to raise the issue there.
I hope Mr. R.B. Spencer finds some other strong online marketer for his books.
vlparker says
It won’t stop. Amazon needs to be broken up.
Rouge1 says
Says the government clown.
Lydia Church says
Just more hate from the haters to censor the truth.
Don’t expect the pogroms to slow down any time soon…
Matthieu Baudin says
“…Amazon must be broken up in accord with anti-trust laws…”
You bet!
Joe says
Jihad Watch and Legal Insurrection should redirect their links to “legitimate” associates. Amazon is basically suppressing specific links after research. Yet there are thousands of other links that lead to Amazon. Yes, this violates Amazon’s stupid rules. Who cares? That is even better.
Tony46 says
Pigs
Anne says
There is a pattern beginning to emerge from Amazon demonetizations just like with YT/Twitter/FB etc… .
Legal Insurrection has a story that they too have been demonitized. See also a recent Daily Caller story of the demonetization by Amazon of a Christian group.
Dough Collector says
You don’t understand. Conservatives are dhimmis. We pay a tax to liberals to use Youtube and Amazon, and soon, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, and cable TV. The NFL just paid its $90 million bill for the year for its failure to adhere to sharia law.
Pay or convert, heretic.
Mike says
NFL is more sissy than I could imagine !
Mike says
So Bezos demonetise something . It must be the first time . Usualy , he tries to monetise everyrthing .
CJ says
I think it might be time for me to leave Amazon Prime. Wal-Mart might be a new option.
CJ says
Walmart has free ship-to-store or free 2-day shipping if you spend a certain amount. I just spent over $100 on Walmart for something that I usually buy at Amazon. The biggest pain in the rear was putting in a new payment option. I feel so liberated!! Good riddance Amazon.
Jay Dee says
Here’s a Newspeak term; Idiot-Signalling. Jeff Bezos is signalling that I’m a really useful idiot.
gravenimage says
Amazon demonetizes Jihad Watch: is it “hate” to oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression?
………………………
Yet, they are fine with this:
“Amazon sells jihad recruitment material and bomb-making manual, available for next-day delivery”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/05/amazon-sells-jihad-recruitment-material-and-bomb-making-manual-available-for-next-day-delivery