Well done Amazon, its time to review your marketplace!

 
 

The power of the media is a curious thing.

Sometimes it can create madness and mayhem out of the most trivial of incidents.

Sometimes it can lead the fight for justice and the common good.

Thankfully, in the case of the Manchester United abusive chants, Amazon has withdrawn the offending album/MP3.

It took them four days and only after, it seems, Arsenal indicated that the offending chant was defamatory with all the legal implications that selling the MP3 could entail.

Media coverage of the chant's presence on Amazon has been widespread over the last few days and the wise move from a communications point of view would have been to remove the offending and offensive item immediately.

Even Manchester United criticsed the chant and its own fans for making such unfounded comments towards a rival manager.

I find it surprising, I must say, that Amazon missed the opportunity to take that stance without the need for the widespread media outrage and official Arsenal to provoke them into action.

The fact that they say in their statement that they needed to be told that the chant MP3 was defamatory without being able to work it out themselves; and that they would consider it censorship to remove the item had the threat of defamation not been made apparent seems incredible for an organisation the size of Amazon.

As the market leader, Amazon won't lose too many customers over this PR error, but I hope they learn the lesson that for a 69p clip that has a limited audience and a huge outrage value, they have damaged their reputation in a way that was entirely avoidable.