Adotas

Where media buyers start online


Featured Author

Jaime Gottlieb
Associate Editor
A south Florida native, Gottlieb is a Creative Writing graduate from Florida State University and was a freelance Arts and Entertainment feature writer before joining ADOTAS in 2004.

More articles by Jaime Gottlieb






Features

Walmart Offends With DVD Recommendations

Written on
Jan 6, 2006 
Author
Jaime Gottlieb  |
Share
Walmart Offends With DVD Recommendations

Just when you think it’s safe to shop online for your favorite DVD, something offensive happens. The Associated Press repoted on Friday that Walmart.com has shut down its system that provides movie recommendations for usersof its shopping Web site.

This tool, which is meant to help consumers find similar films to those they are searching for and plan to purchase, has made a lot of those same consumers very upset. Why? According to the AP, when searching for the “Planet of the Apes” on DVD, consumers were getting recommendations for African-American-themed movies including those about Martin Luther King Jr. and Tina Turner.

Though the company has said it does not know how this problem occurred, they are looking into it. “We are heartsick that this happened and are currently doing everything possible to correct the problem,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams said in a statement.

“Walmart.com’s item mapping process does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles. We were horrified to discover that some hurtful and offensive combinations are being mapped together,” she said, adding that the company was “deeply sorry that this happened.”





Reader Comments.

No comments yet

Leave a Comment

Add a comment

Tags: , , and
Article Sponsor

More Features



  • Once Facebook goes public, what's the most important thing it'll need to do in order to live up the expectations of its real value?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Latest News

News Archive

Spotlight

Sponsormob Leads the Way Into RTB for MobileADOTAS – For more than half a decade, Berlin-based tech firm Sponsormob has remained relevant in an industry characterized by [...] more...


Adotas Partnership