News & Reviews

WORD: Amazon CEO apologizes to Kindle users for Big Brother tactics

Amazon, which recently shocked readers by deleting e-books they’d purchased such as George Orwell’s "1984" and "Animal Farm" from their Kindle devices, has pulled an about-face and apologized to consumers -- many of whom complained about the company’s increasingly dogmatic policies.

Amazon originally iced the titles due to unauthorized e-books at the Kindle website but it went further, vaporizing them from the Kindle devices of consumers themselves. The move raised concerns about whether we can actually "own" a book that we purchase in digital format, since the online retailer can repossess them at anytime without prior notification.

It’s one thing to delete unauthorized e-books from your own site, quite another to effectively enter the homes of consumers and seize our e-books. After some heavy criticism from customers about Amazon’s Big Brother tactics, CEO and founder Jeff Bezos issued an apology.

"This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our ‘solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles," said Bezos in a statement.

"It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."

The Orwellian ruckus is the second "painful mistake" from Amazon in recent months, and its second apology. Back in April Amazon un-ranked more than 57,000 books that it considered "adult" content -- most of which included gay and lesbian themes.

Many users decried the move as censorship, and after taking heat Amazon blamed a technical "glitch" for the problem. Still, many users at the time said it was just another example of Amazon’s attempt at homogenizing the literary landscape.

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