Simple mistake. Could happen to anybody.

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Tuesday, March 21, 2006 at 2:34 PM EST
SEATTLE (AP) ? Amazon-dot-com says it is changing the way its search
engine handles requests for the term ?abortion.?
http://www.wtsp.com/weird/weird_article.aspx?storyid=27589

The Web retailer says it got an e-mail complaint that the results of the
searches seem biased.

 Until the criteria were changed, if you were to type in the word
?abortion? you'd get a prompt that asks: ?Did you mean adoption?? Under
the question, there are search results on abortion.

A spokeswoman for Amazon says the prompt isn't meant as some kind of
political or social statement but rather a technology issue.

Patty Smith notes that adoption and abortion are nearly the same, save
for two keystrokes, so the program takes into account the possibility of
a misspelling.

But the company says it ditched the question because the e-mailer raised
a valid question. People who type in the term ?adoption? don't get a
prompt asking: ?Do you mean abortion.? The change in the site was
reported yesterday by The New York Times.


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