By Dave Gahary
In a disturbing development for free speech lovers across the globe, Amazon.com, Inc., the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States, has taken a series of unusual steps to ban the publication of various books for sale worldwide.
Although no information is in the public domain detailing how many titles the world’s largest online bookseller has blocked for sale, evidence suggests that these unusual moves may be the beginning of a larger purge of written material Amazon feels should be, for whatever reason or reasons, kept out of the public purview.
Even more disturbing is the reach and influence of the mammoth retailer. This year Amazon leapfrogged past Walmart’s market capitalization, or the total market value of its publicly traded stock. Despite the fact that the company can barely squeak out a profit, Amazon’s stock trades at close to $700 per share, although as early as August 31, 2009 it traded at under $100.
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