Online retailer Amazon.com Inc has announced that from March 1, 1999 it will tell its customers which feature placements on its web site are paid for and which are not. Yes, you read that right. Until March 1, Amazon will continue its existing practice of accepting up to $10,000 from publishers to draw attention to their books, without disclosing that it has done so. The company stresses that its recommendations are not and never have been for sale to anyone. Only books selected by Amazon.com editors qualify for publisher-supported placement. CEO Jeff Bezos explained, For a book that doesn’t meet our standards, there is no amount of money that would cause us to feature it. Amazon, in other words, doesn’t accept bribes from just anyone.
