October 15, 2013 | Online

Online retailers purging offensive e-books

WH Smith has decided to close its online store while dealing with self-published e-book titles that it considers "unacceptable."

Last week, it was revealed that the book dealer was selling fiction e-books on topics such as rape, incest and bestiality. Initially the company apologized, but this weekend it decided to take its site offline and remove all of the offensive material.

WH Smith blamed part of the problem on the sheer volume of e-book submissions. The books are uploaded directly onto its site by individual authors and publishers, making it difficult to police. The company said it was now "working quickly to review its catalog and remove the content, authors and publishers in question."

According to WHSmith.co.uk: "Our website will become live again once all self-published e-books have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available."

Similar content can be purchased on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

"When there are violations to the content policy that are brought to our attention, either through our internal process or from a customer or external source, we have a rapid response team in place to appropriately categorise or remove the content in accordance with our policy," Barnes & Noble said in a statement.

Amazon.com has also stated that such books are in violation of its terms of use, and is actively removing all offending titles.

WH Smith Takes Entire Site Offline After Porn E-book Scandal [XBiz]

WH Smith takes website offline after porn e-book scandal [BBC News]

Amazon removes abuse-themed e-books from store [BBC News]