Does anyone know whether Amazon has waived the normal 2.9%-plus-$0.30 fee that they assess on donations made to the American Red Cross through the Amazon Honor System? According to their charities page (and an old c|net article), the company explicitly waived the fees for 9/11 donations, but there’s not a word on the Amazon website about whether that’s still true.

For the past few days, I agreed with the general sentiment on the web that Amazon’s lack of any prominent mention of ways to contribute was odd (especially given its quick and overwhelming response to the tsunami earlier this year, converting their entire homepage into a plea for donations). This just extends that baffled sentiment a little bit more for me — if they are waiving the fees, why don’t they make that clear? And if they’re not waiving the fees, why wouldn’t they?

I’d love it if someone knew the answer to this; until then, though, I’d recommend either donating to the Red Cross directly (though their website has been absolutely swamped, and is at times totally inaccessible) or to the Red Cross via Yahoo (who has pledged to pass 100% of donations through to the Red Cross).