Big Brother Amazon is Gobshiteing You...

I have been selling goods on Amazon Marketplace for about a year now. I have been surprised how many CD's and DVD's I have sold over the course of my time peddling goods on Amazon.com. Amazon, of course, takes its cut. And their cut is about to get even larger at the end of this month despite the fact that nothing on the Amazon.com Marketplace site has changed whatsoever or the customer service, much of which is canned consisting of formulaic form letters which, in good computer age fashion, respond to any issue Amazon thinks exits out there in Marketplace space. Can you say Amazon looking up to the money god?

Recently I have run into a problem with Amazon Marketplace, one that might lead me to avoid Amazon like the plague in the future. For almost a year I have had two region 2, the DVD region code for Europe and the UK that our friendly corporate capitalists who want to make sure that they can go global but consumers can't, Dr. Who DVD's for sale on my Marketplace page, "Earthshock" and the "Aztecs". Additionally I have sold several region 2 DVD's over the near year I have been on Amazon Marketplace, something for which Amazon took its pound of flesh (they are taking even more pounds of flesh beginning this month) and for which Amazon, as you will see, is the very essence of hypocrisy.

Last month, March, and this month, April, I received a stinging rebuke from Amazon for selling the region 2 DVDs "Earthshock" and "Aztecs" on their holy site. The missive stated that it is unlawful, Amazon.com makes it own laws of course, to sell region 2 DVD's on their site because region 2 discs cannot play on DVD players available in the US, something that is indeed accurate unless you buy an all region DVD player from Amazon. Amazon is where I purchased my two all region DVD players. Need I say that Amazon are scribes and hypocrites of the first order here?

Amazon is not only a champion of hypocrisy when it comes to taking its cut of region 2 DVD's sold and for selling all region DVD players which can play region 2 discs, they are hypocritical because at this moment there are hundreds if not thousands of new and used region 2 and region 4 DVD's for sale on Amazon.com some of which are even delivered to those who buy them by good old Amazon.com. Almost all of them, all of mine anyway, state quite clearly that they are region 2 DVD's and contain a warning from Amazon itself that region 2 DVD's may not play on American sold DVD players. And I quote: "Region 2 encoding (This DVD will not play on most DVD players sold in the US or Canada [Region 1]. This item requires a region specific or multi-region DVD player and compatible TV. More about DVD formats.)". Fair warning. Caveat emptor. Two more examples of Amazon.com hypocrisy.

I have asked Amazon on several occasions about this policy of amazon cleansing. What I have generally received, apart from a couple of instances where some Amazonians said they had no idea why my DVDs were being amazonically cleansed, the Amazon version of ethnic cleansing, is this canned response:
"Greetings from Amazon Seller Support,
Thank you for writing to us,
I understand your concern and frustration this has caused to you regarding listing region 2 DVDs and that the items has been removed from the website.
We have contacted our concerned team and they have informed that selling region 2 DVDs is not allowed as the format is not supported in United States and is for Europe, Japan, Middle East etc.
You can check the below link which will give you more information regarding the different regions and the supported countries where it can be used, http://www.barrel-of-monkeys.com/graphics/prod/dvdplayers/world-regions.shtml
However if you find any other sellers selling region 2 dvds then you can report this as a violation to our investigation team.
To report this possible violation to our investigations team, select "Report a violation of our rules" on the Contact Us form and enter the details".

Love the why not narc on "violators", coda particularly since Amazon.com allows us to note different region codes when we are entering code for our products for sale--yet another instance of Amazon hypocrisy--and for what its says about Amazon itself. Our online Pharaoh apparently wants us to do their job--should their job be to take down all region 2 DVD's--for them. Does anything say wanker more than this? I suspect, by the way, that the two Who's that were amazonically cleansed were probably the result of this narcing policy that turns all of us into the Stasi and I suspect BBC Warner, some sour grape consumer, or even a competitor. None of these, however, excuse Amazon's selective "enforcement" of a "crime" that, shades of Franz Kafka, may not be a crime at all even within the bizarre and surrealistic world of Amazon.com.

There have, of course, been rumblings about Amazon from a variety of sources and for a variety of reasons over the years. Personally, I have just about had it with this authoritarian corporation (I know, oxymoronic) with tendencies toward fascism. And that is why I say, with the logo above, that Amazon sucks and it sucks the big one. Gobshites, scribes, hypocrites, and wankers Amazon clearly is me mateys.