From: Wayne Pacelle (President & CEO, Humane Society of the United States)
To: Carol Buckley
Date: June 19, 2007
RE: Letter from Carol Buckley to Wayne Pacelle re: Amazon.com

Thank you for your e-mail, expressing your concern about links to Amazon.com on the HSUS web site. We have heard from several others within the field on this point, and I have discussed it with staff members internally as well.

Our affiliation with the program to which you refer, Amazon.com Associates, dates back many years, and predates our litigation against Amazon. We have used it mainly for convenience, as a way to refer people to books of value and interest that are not published or distributed by The HSUS, books like Ascione and Lockwood, Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence, and Ron Burns’ The Dogs of Ron Burns. I have asked our comptroller to verify this point, but I am not sure that this referral program has brought any income whatsoever to The HSUS during the last several years, and in no case would such profit be substantial. With respect to the nine or ten books involved, we have used the link to enhance the sales prospects of authors we favor, not to secure profits for The HSUS.

Our primary goals in filing the lawsuit were to encourage Amazon to honor lawful standards and to apply the same degree of consistency to animal fighting materials that it observes in relation to narcotics trafficking and other clearly criminal practices. As the instigator of this litigation, we obviously deplore Amazon’s position on the sale of materials that contravene federal law, and we have sought to make the strongest possible case on legal grounds. However, we have generally avoided broadening our line of attack beyond the realm of legal argument, as a strategic matter. We have not used the facts of the case to demonize a company whose practices are not otherwise objectionable, and with whom we would expect to have no grievance once the legal issue in the case has been resolved in our favor.

Since we have not called for a boycott, and have derived little if any financial benefit from participation in the Associates program, we have not viewed withdrawal from the program as a priority. In light of lingering concerns about the Associates relationship, however, I have instructed responsible staff members to suspend our participation in the program pending the outcome of the litigation. I plan to revisit the issue in the future as the case proceeds.

Sincerely,


Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO