Wal-Mart Says Mix-Up Put Sex Books on Web Site
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, learned about some of the more arcane perils of e-commerce when it launched its redesigned Web site over the weekend and found it had inadvertently featured sex books among its family-friendly fare.
The company said the mix-up--which offered browsers such paperbacks as “The Best of Gay Adult Videos” and “The Couple’s Guide to the Best Erotic Videos”--was the result of downloading a database of titles from a third-party supplier, Books-A-Million. A spokeswoman said the company expected the items to be removed by today.
Wal-Mart, which promotes a clean image and marks potentially offensive music with “sanitized for your protection,” had given the book supplier strict guidelines on the types of titles it would sell, a spokeswoman said. Some inappropriate content apparently still slipped through the cracks, she said.
“I would like to tell you that we’re perfect, but we’re not,” said spokeswoman Melissa Berryhill. “We did everything we could to ensure things like this wouldn’t happen. In this case, some were overlooked, and we’re working with all deliberate speed to get it taken care of and apologize to our customers.”
The company has made news for what some have called heavy-handed censoring tactics, demanding record companies replace explicit lyrics or cover photographs before selling them in the retailer’s nearly 2,500 stores and supercenters. The group White Zombie had to airbrush a bikini on an image of a naked woman on the cover of a compact disc. The alternative rock band Nirvana had to change the title of its hit song “Rape Me” to “Waif Me.”
Wal-Mart debuted a redesigned site on Saturday after postponing the relaunch from last fall to get the details right, the company said. The expanded site has between 500,000 and 600,000 items, a photo service and a travel store. Some of the merchandise, Wal-Mart said, was integrated into the site by taking pre-assembled content from outside companies that were handling orders and shipping.
Books--including the list and descriptions--were handled by Birmingham, Ala.-based Books-A-Million, a chain of more than 175 stores mostly in the southeastern U.S. Calls to the bookseller were not returned.
Carol Huckabay, a Wal-Mart devotee who shops at the San Diego store twice a month, said she wasn’t even looking for books when the site directed her to a list that nearly shocked her out of her chair.
The 50-year-old Clairmont resident was looking for the classic musical “Pal Joey” and typed the word “videos” into the site’s search box. That brought her to a list of books about videos, including one called “Voyeur Video Guide.”
A description of the book says it lists “special-interest” sex videos depicting adult topics such as “flashers” and “hidden camera.”
“Online you see much worse, but it’s not what I expected from Wal-Mart,” Huckabay said.
Late Monday, Walmart.com still listed erotic books among its offerings but would no longer take orders or link to descriptions. A click on one of the titles brought up this message: “We are sorry, but this item is currently being restocked. Please try again later.”
Huckabay said she faxed the company a letter over the weekend, writing that if she found items that included an illustration of a man’s legs with his pants down, children could as well.
The company phoned her Monday to apologize, she said.
