Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retail chain, shut down its movie recommendation software after it was discovered that the company’s e-tail web site was suggesting movies about famous African Americans such as Martin Luther King, Tina Turner, and Jack Johnson to those looking at boxed DVDs of Planet of the Apes, a science-fiction movie about intelligent apes.
The problem surfaced after a screen shot of the movie and the suggested viewing list of African American movies circulated on the web Thursday.
Late in the afternoon, Wal-Mart shut down the recommendation software and issued an apology.
“We are heartsick that this happened and are currently doing everything possible to correct the problem,” said Wal-Mart spokesperson Mona Williams. “The offensive combinations that have been identified will be removed from the site.
“However, with thousands of movie items available, there is an almost endless number of possible combinations,” she added. “Because of that, we will be shutting down our entire movie cross-selling system until the problem is resolved.”
Shares of Wal-Mart fell $0.48 to $45.21 in recent trading.
According to Ms. Williams, the software was not working correctly and there were other incorrect combinations being mapped.
Bizarre Links
“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,” she said. “Walmart.com's item-mapping process does not work correctly and at this point is mapping seemingly random combinations of titles.
Power Puff Girls“We were horrified to discover that some hurtful and offensive combinations are being mapped together,” she added.
Home Alone is an adventure movie about an eight-year-old who is accidentally left behind while his family flies to France for Christmas. He has to defend his home against idiotic burglars. Power Puff Girls is an animated movie about three girls with super powers.
Riding Giants, a 2004 documentary about surfers and the history of the surfing culture, was also linked to African American films. Polar Express, an animated fantasy about a boy’s magical train ride to the North Pole, was also linked to the Martin Luther King DVD.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a film about a young boy who wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, was also linked to African American movies.