Old News, but still...



I don't have a problem with a given store deciding which products they choose to sell. However, once an organization achieves something approaching a monopoly over its service, then its sales practices deserve some scrutiny.

In particular, it seems that, among other things, WalMart no longer sells copies of the 3 most popular men's magazines.

the company's standards and the magazines' content have not changed, but the firm has been under pressure from Christian groups in the past for its sale of certain magazines.

There are a couple of problems with this that I can think of:

1. Hypocracy: Maxim is hit, but Cosmopolitan which is substantially more explicit is not bothered. Its the standard anti-male bias, but it still annoys me.


2. Small town censorship: Walmart enters small towns and drives its competition out of business. I live in a big city, so if Walmart doesn't sell Maxim, I can still get it somewhere else. However, if I lived in Gananoque or some other backwater area, this corporate decision has effectively censored the magazine in the area


3. Imposition of religious values: I get pretty offended by the ubiquitous christmas music that starts playing 2 hours after Halloween ends. Do I have the right to impose my view on others?

I don't necessarily believe that it is incumbent upon Walmart to change its policies, I think that it is more important for consumers to take a stand against Walmart and demonstrate that this type of censorship is unacceptable. I used to boycott Walmart a few years ago, but they changed many of their more objectionable policies, so I ended the boycott. From now on though, I'm not buying any magazines from there, I don't care if its 25% off the cover price.