Wal-Mart ‘offensive mapping’ debacle
p2p news / p2pnet: Wal-Mart Stores has dumped its online movie recommendation system after the application linked a Planet of the Apes DVD to films about famous black Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr.
"Wal-Mart said Thursday it had removed what it called the ‘offensive combinations’ from a walmart.com page advertising a boxed DVD set, ‘Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series’," says the Associated Press.
"Walmart.com’s item mapping process does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles," AP has Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams saying,
" We were horrified to discover that some hurtful and offensive combinations are being mapped together."
Williams say Wal-Mart is, "deeply sorry that this happened," and to, "further illustrate the bizarre nature of this technical issue, the site is also mapping movies such as ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Power Puff Girls’ to African-American-themed DVDs."
Also See:
Associated Press – Wal-Mart Halts Movie Suggestions on Web, January 6, 2006
January 6th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/articles/2006/01/05/ap/headlines/d8ev577o8.txt
what else would you expect from a company that even treats its own employees like dirt?
also, i’d like to know who designed and maintained their search engine look-up system. is it google? yahoo? msn?
January 9th, 2006 at 10:28 am
“what else would you expect from a company that even treats its own employees like dirt? ”
Thought I’d note that where I live (snowville hell, with a bunch of rain on top) the employees here sit in their breakroom thats out back in the parking lot.. I see them out there every day… rain, snow, hail…. SAD treatment of workers.. but yet they still work there.
Just my 10 cents.
_-Jile-_
January 9th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
It sounds to me like a pretty nifty crack. If I wanted to damage an organization’s reputation, I would make it appear racists. That is a big no no in our society.