Amazon Forces Changes at LibraryThing

LibraryThing, the popular social networking site for readers, reported yesterday that the site was making some big changes to follow new rules set by Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN)–making some readers unhappy.

According to the post, Amazon now requires affiliates to “remove links to other booksellers on work pages,” or risk losing access to the valuable book data that the massive online bookseller provides to LibraryThing. To cope, LibraryThing is building a new set of “secondary pages” that link to other booksellers.

Here’s more from the site: “Amazon is requiring all websites, as a condition of getting any data from them, to have the primary page link to Amazon alone. Links to other booksellers are prohibited. Secondary pages–pages you go to from the primary page–can have non-Amazon links. Everyone at LibraryThing disagrees with this decision. LibraryThing is not a social cataloging and social networking site for Amazon customers but for book lovers.” (Via Publishers Weekly)

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