Amazon is already taking flak for price gouging of hand sanitzer and surgical masks sold on its site as COVID-19 spreads globally. Now the world’s largest online retailer is being slammed for facilitating the sale of plagiarized books about the pandemic, as well those peddling false information.
Books with titles like Jesus vs Satan: The Origins of Coronavirus and Military Virus Apocalypse: Biological Warfare, Bioweapons and China Coronavirus Pandemic (which claims to cover the history of biological weapons and “natural ways to boost your immune system”) have appeared on the e-commerce site under categories like “Medical E-books,” “Science and Math,” “Medicine,” and “Religion and Spirituality,” Business Insider reported in late February, noting that such titles could mislead or misinform unsuspecting readers.
In response, Amazon cited its policy of providing customers with “a variety of viewpoints, including books that some customers may find objectionable” with the possible exception of “pornography or other inappropriate content.”
Amazon’s “Content Guidelines for Books” also notes that sellers are responsible for ensuring that their “content doesn’t violate laws or copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights….Just because content is freely available does not mean you are free to copy and sell it,” Amazon warns.
Alas, those seeking to capitalize on worldwide COVID-19 concerns may not be heeding Amazon’s warning.
Books appearing high on Amazon’s “coronavirus” search results earlier this week were filled with plagiarized copy, NBC News reported Wednesday.
For instance, the top “coronavirus” search result on Tuesday was a book titled Coronavirus: Everything You Need to Know About the Wuhan Corona Virus and How to Prevent It, which seemed upon first glance to be an “authoritative deep dive on how to prepare for the pandemic.”
However, the book’s contents turned out to have been cribbed verbatim from news and feature stories written for and published elsewhere on the web, including NBC News itself.
Amazon later told NBC News it had taken down that title, and Wired reported that the retailer had removed others as well. “Amazon maintains content guidelines for the books it sells, and we continue to evaluate our catalog, listening to customer feedback,” the online retailer told the tech site.
A quick search for “coronavirus” on Amazon today turns up book and e-book results that indicate the issue is far from resolved, raising additional questions about Amazon’s oversight and whether dubious titles about COVID-19 may be as difficult to contain as the virus itself.
Amy Reiter is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York.
