This week the Wall Street Journal revealed that Amazon adjusted its product search algorithm to emphasize Amazon’s most profitable listings at the expense of customer relevance or item popularity. The article contends that there are two primary item categories that have taken on greater prominence: private label items and sponsored items. The move was controversial internally as developers felt pressured to emphasize profitable items over items that best served customers, and externally, it raises even more antitrust scrutiny around Amazon’s power.

What’s most interesting about all of this (to me at least) is how out of character the move seems to be for the company that puts “customer obsession” above all else. This move put profitability over relevance on the world’s third most popular search engine is not the action a customer obsessed brand would ever take.