Amazon halts sale of 'Pedophile Guide'

Amid a wave of criticism and calls for nationwide boycott, Amazon.com has reportedly decided to discontinue the sale of an e-book entitled The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure. The book has been off the shelves since Thursday afternoon.

The e-book authored by Phillip R Greaves was put up on the site by an online retailer on October 28 and sold at a price of $4.79. The product description read that the book was an 'attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them'. The author maintained that pedophiles are often misunderstood and are in need of advice to help them abide by the law.

On Wednesday Amazon, which had shied away from media, responded to some of the user comments over the book via e-mail. It maintained that the group only allows authors to submit their own books but in no way promotes criminal acts.

Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable, it said.

Communities on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter condemned the statement claiming that it supported the child abuse and called for a boycott of Amazon.com. One comment on the Amazon's own site read I have seen firsthand the harm that people like the author of the book, and potential readers, do to children and to see a book like this on Amazon's 'shelves', so to speak, is very troubling to me.

According to a report in Fox News, Amazon has also been selling a controversial e-book titled I Am the Market: How to Smuggle Cocaine by the Ton, in Five Easy Lessons by Luca Rastello. Back In 2009, the site was heavily criticized by media for its sale of a video game titled 'Rapelay', which featured the lead character raping both mothers and daughters after serial stalking. A conservative group, the United States Justice Foundation, also slammed the site for selling the book titled Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers in 2002.