clipped from www.guardian.co.uk 'Gay writing' falls foul of Amazon sales ranking system Online retailer blames reduced profiles of Winterson, Hollinghurst, Vidal and others on glitch in new family-friendly charts The internet retailer Amazon has found itself at the centre of a censorship row after it decided to remove a number of so-called adult books from its online charts. Over the weekend, thousands of books have lost their sales rank – the number that Amazon uses to show how well one title sells compared with another – as the company apparently seeks to make its bestseller lists more family friendly. But thousands of users have voiced concern after the seemingly random application of the new rules not only affected a number of high-profile authors, including Annie Proulx, EM Forster and Jeanette Winterson, but also led to thousands of gay and lesbian titles being stripped of their sales rank, regardless of their sexual content. Amazon blamed a "glitch" in its system, which it said last night was being fixed.