Could you ever imagine a local retailer in your area breaking and entering into your home, taking away all your books, and then not giving you a straightforward explanation as to why they did so? Me neither. Breaking and entering into someone else's physical property, and talking away their physical possessions without explanation is so obviously wrong and illegal!
Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor woman, except in the digital realm: Amazon 'broke and entered' into her Kindle, took away all her books, and then did not give her a straightforward explanation as to why they did so.
More alarmingly, Amazon did this with impunity, because this woman never really owned "her" books or, for that matter, anything else she "purchased" on "her" Kindle. In the digital realm, what Amazon did to this woman is perfectly legal.
Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.
Tangentially related, I am getting very, very tired of "customer service" departments using phrases like:
"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts, please know that we have reviewed your account on the basis of the information provided and regret to inform you that it will not be reopened."
This happens more frequently: Google says this all the time, based on posts here; Amazon now does the same thing; even apartment rental companies will say "you've been turned down on the basis of this report that we don't know the contents of."
If your company can't reveal specific reasons or steps behind why an action was taken, DON'T TAKE THAT ACTION. Even my credit card issuer will tell me exactly why my card was flagged and they deal with ACTUAL MONEY. All these statements do is infuriate customers, create bad press, and drive away other customers. Scammers will just back up, look at their entire operation, and hammer away again with 300 new accounts so all you've accomplished is pissing off customers who want to do business with you.
Agreed. When the first DVD burners came out HP had an exclusive period for sales of them. I really wanted one, so I ordered it online and got an email a few minutes later saying my order had been canceled. I called and ask why. The usual "we can't tell you, sorry" answer. I wouldn't let go. I asked for a manager and then spent a hour on the phone--I just wouldn't hang up--telling her I had made thousands of transactions online over the last 10 years with that credit card and this was the first problem. I hammered her for details and she never gave me one, but she did do something else: she decided to verify me via other means (I have no idea what those were) by asking me a series of questions. After which she took my order manually and I got the device I wanted.
Normally, I would have voted with my pocket book, but in this case they had the sole source of the item (for a time). I also wanted to cost them a huge amount of time for their error.
As soon as you give people a reason, they will argue with the specifics. The only way to get people to accept "no" and go away is to refuse to provide any additional information that they could take issue with.
I've come to the conclusion that a big problem with todays extremely anonymized and impersonal customer service of large corporations is that there is nobody (or at least nobody with the competence to do anything), that you can shout at till things get fixed...
Essentially, as a customer one is often limited to submitting requests through web forms and receiving boilerplate answers (if at all) that lead nowhere if the case at hand is somewhat nonstandard, or to spend endless hours circulating through similarly scripted phone support hotlines, without ever reaching somebody that can actually fix the problem.
Kafka would be hard pressed to top some of those customer support experiences.
Companies have privacy obligations. If they inaccurately link you to a fraudulent user and then tell you all the activity of that fraudulent user, they've probably just broken the law.
That's a specific example where it might not be legal but I agree that this is widespread and there are lots of things in the real world where it would be fine to tell you, but they choose not to. In my experience this is to protect internal process (so you can't cite why they're idiots) or so that they can sell you another product (credit score improvement, etc).
But I do agree, the withholding of detail is widespread to a point where it suggests people just plain don't want to tell you anything.
"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts"
I don't think it means they don't know, I think it means they can't[1] "detail", i.e. tell you.
Well, my credit card issuer (wells fargo) actually cant' tell me. They say its flagged, for a reason they don't know. (ofc, they do, they just wont tell).
Then they just unflag it after I answer 10 security questions and that's it.
The fact that Amazon can do this is obviously scary, particularly for those with extensive Kindle libraries. Personally I love the idea of ebooks but the publishers are doing their best to kill this market (eg Surface Detail in paperback is $6, as an ebook its $10 WTF?).
Now I can't speak to the truth of these claims. I have no inside knowledge but I will say this: be skeptical of such stories. I have seen other stories like this on HN where I have had some inside knowledge and I can tell you that there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies.
It's a common theme to have a post of "[BigCo] shut down my account for no reason". I describe such stories as "unverifiable stories in which the poster is a victim".
Like I said, this could all be exactly as the poster claims but it might not be as well. It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US. Who knows? Amazon needs to be extremely careful to be right in situations like this or they risk undermining the ecosystem they've spent so long to create.
I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase.
But when it comes to technical books--books I'll often refer back to and that can cost much more--I'll have to make sure I either only buy the PDF version or I buy the PDF+mobi+epub upgrade from the publisher after buying the Kindle book (2 thumbs up to publishers who do this BTW).
Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point.
Microsoft, Google, eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Facebook, etc. handle millions of accounts. They have automated filters that trigger based on specified criteria that kill your account.
Their default response when this happens? Talk to legal. Well, more like write to legal. They don't want to talk to you.
The problem? Microsoft has your operating system, Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has your social life, etc.
And they can yank all of that away.
They don't even press any button. It's triggered automatically by criteria they never disclose beyond a vague TOS.
We need to push for a universal option for arbitration by a 3rd party regarding these sorts of unilateral actions. If anything, it will probably reduce the support and legal costs for all of these companies.
Is there any conceivable scenario where this is in any way excusable?
Deny continued service? Sure (though hardly in the way that is portrayed in the post, you must be able to know why and contest it). Remotely brick hardware and deletion of user data? Never, ever, ever. No - don't even think about thinking about it. NO.
"It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US."
And?! That would be a horrible reason for deleting all of a user's purchased items. More reason for these types of posts to exist. The situation itself doesn't really matter, but bringing attention to the possible dangers of DRM is important. The fact that we don't own these DRMed items is incredibly scary.
"there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies."
Okay.. but without data this is just a vague anecdote.
If all you're trying to say is "be careful", well alright. But honestly I don't care. The story itself isn't that important in these cases as long as people are thinking about what the possible dangers of DRM are. And they are really big dangers.
These types of posts are the only action an individual can take when pitted against a big company.
Here is a story from the other side. My wife writes and publishes business book summaries. She submitted about ten of those to be published on Kindle. Amazon happily published some of them in US market but decided that the content was "public domain" is other regions. Now I would have understood if they would have said "copyright violation" but "public domain"?
Our email correspondence with them was very similar to the one reported in the original post. They will repeat the original mail 2-3 times and will walk away after that leaving you with no answers.
> I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase.
Hmmm, just because a $6 paperback may seem like a throwaway price to you doesn't mean they are single-use products. That's consumerism gone crazy.
I have to admit, I too have a real hard time keeping a cheap paperback presentable after its 2nd or 3rd read (or in subsequent reads, readable, for that matter). I don't know how people do it, so I just make a point to warn my friends about this habit whenever they let me lend one of theirs (and they invariably say "oh I like it when a book looks like it's been read."--sure thing, that'll be no problem!).
Still, that doesn't mean I see them as throwaways, rather I see them as fragile, and IMO the ebook form should lessen this attribute when possible, instead of mimicking (in some sense) it with DRM.
You make it sound like releasing an ebook is somehow cheaper than releasing a paperback. I think in many cases this does not hold true. As long as ebooks represent a minority of all book sales producing paperbacks will be cheaper to produce than ebooks, just by law of mass production.
I e-mailed amazon using a feedback form[1]. following is what I wrote. I appreciate if other kindle owners can do the same to help Linn and for the greater good.
This makes me hesitant about making any future purchases. I understand your right to act against any abuse but I also believe that users have a right know what was really going on, especially when they are being totally banished.
This email is to direct your attention towards the problem so you can have another chance of finishing things in a nicer way. I strongly believe DRM sucks but I also believe there are valid reasons for it to be there. The problem is not black or white. I'd like to see a solution that is acceptable for both parties (Amazon and the customer).
Its getting to the point where I am seriously considering closing my Amazon account. I just don't like the way it does business any more. Can anyone recommend a good online bookseller in the UK? Is Waterstones any good?
The Guardian is running a story [1] today about how Amazon forces publishers to cover the cost of 20% VAT (sales tax) on ebook sales, even though it only pays 3% to the Luxembourg government (where it is based for tax purposes). It also insists that if a publisher offers a better price to another retailer then it must offer the same price to Amazon.
They also pay no corporation tax in the UK, despite sales of more than £3.3bn/yr [2], through being based in Luxembourg.
I was going to jump ship to The Book Depository, but Amazon bought them last year. Its hard to understand why this was allowed by the competition regulator, and it doesn't give me much confidence that the UK government has much interest in limiting their control of multiple markets.
They have certainly lost me as a potential Kindle user. I was considering buying myself a Kindle for Christmas, but that's not going to happen now. I thought Amazon could be trusted with my money, but it's clear that it's too risky.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone higher up sees her issues and activates her account. But I can't trust my money to a company where you could lose access to books worth thousands if you talk with the wrong person.
"Better World Books is a self-sustaining, for-profit social venture whose mission is to capitalize on the value of the book to fund literacy initiatives locally, nationally and around the world. We partner with nearly 1400 libraries and over 1800 college campuses across the U.S. and Canada, collecting unwanted textbooks and library discards in support of non-profit literacy programs. We have raised millions of dollars for literacy, saved millions of books from landfills, created jobs for hundreds of people, and provided wonderful books to millions of readers worldwide."
Waterstones used to use Amazon to sell books (presumably they couldn't make any money any other way). Not sure if they still do.
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/ is pretty good, particularly for difficult to find and second hand books. I've found more and more recently that play.com does almost as well as (and often better than) Amazon in terms of price, although I don't know much about their business tactics.
I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals.
When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.
> I treat all E-books purchased with DRM as rentals.
I don't buy e-books. It would annoy me to be locked out of e.g. a steam account or a Google Play account or an AppStore account or whatever, but I'd manage. Not having access to my books, that is something which wouldn't fly, books have been close friends for all my life, so I will remain physical-only until and unless DRMs are dropped from ebooks, as I did with music. I just don't see the benefits as worth the risk.
Seeing DRM'd ebooks as short-term rental is an interesting idea though. I would see myself "renting" an ebook for a buck. For the same price as the mass-market paperback it still makes no sense.
I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental."
Most of the people I know do too... more or less.
I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." The reality is that "ownership" of digital property is different from ownership of physical property emotionally, legally and practically.
May be you consider it a rental, but most consider it a purchase. That's why throwing out DRM and making a backup should be expected the moment you buy some ebook.
The lack of transparency from Amazon here is worrying.
Because it appears to be Amazon UK dealing with the account holder
I'd be interested to know if she would get anywhere by submitting a Subject Information Request [1].
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 an individual can submit a request for personal information held by an organization and they must comply within 40 days.
Whether she would get the information she is interested in, i.e. which account she is linked to, is another question.
I wonder whether this is related to Linn living in Norway, purchasing from Amazon.com and somehow Amazon.co.uk are getting in the middle, perhaps because they run Europe from there.
It's the game that many people play - trying to find the best Amazon (or Apple) store when they live and travel between countries. This means a constant struggle to find a combination of credit card, store with enough content (The US is best) and a local address (virtual and actual) to satisfy arcane internal rules.
Please Amazon - please move to one global store where any credit card from any country can purchase any edition of any book. Please Amazon and Apple, let us combine content from multiple stores into one account, and let us have a global price based on the best market. Yo usell more stuff, we but more as well.
Meanwhile take the chance to collect, and pay to the local authorities, consumption/sales tax based on the location of the IP address, not the credit card or address of the buyer. That way if someone is standing in the UK, buying content from the USA, then they pay UK tax (VAT), making it fairer versus the physical and local virtual alternatives.
User pays money for something. Company withdraws products without notice and deliberately harms the user's device. Yes this is awful but the solution is as simple as it's always been:
1. Complain. Keep complaining all the way to the top.
2. Sue. If complaining doesn't get you want you've paid for (or your money back, inc the Kindle you now can't use), you've just been robbed and you need to take legal action. You might think you're under a billion and five EULAs but when challenged, courts seem to side with the user when the EULAs attempt to restrict rights that they're not allowed to impinge upon. There are various sales laws that are protected well beyond the words of an EULA.
If you don't do anything about it, you make it worse for everybody else because <<insert horrid company here>> thinks they can get away with it now.
Yep. counter thump your way to the top, then hit whatever small claims will have you. I can't imagine any court will side with a retailer deleting purchases without adequate excuse.
Also, actually writing letters is a great idea, I find it gets much more attention than filling a web form or firing off a hasty email. When you lick that stamp you're showing a company you're willing to put some effort in.
I have a physical library of about 5K books. Should he want to, my son will be able to read those books.
The DRM'd books are a different story. I still want my son to be able to read them, but I have no assurance that the ebooks will be available to him fifteen years from now.
So I yank the DRM from all of my Amazon purchases. These I put on backups. I do not share them.
I would like to see legislation about the ownership of digital content, requiring that purchased content be accessible /at all times/ -- held in escrow, if necessary. Clearly defining a purchase is probably part of this.
I'm a comic book fan, and a while back I started buying comics digitally from Dark Horse's digital store. Being also a HN reader, I'm very aware of what these companies can do, how accounts are closed without notice, wiping all your previous purchases, etc. So obviously as my spending went up in that one digital store, I became concerned of what could happen, especially reading their FAQ that clearly state all my money gave me nothing other than a right to access their online system. So I did like any good geek and I poked around, used a few web developer tools, and found a way to save those comics to PDF, for backup purposes. Now, whenever I buy a new title, the first thing I do is save it as PDF, before even reading it. So now I'm no longer worried about what this company might do, and I encourage everyone who buys goods digitally to do the same. Of course it sucks that we have to do this, but right now that's the only option. Don't let yourself at the mercy of faceless corporations.
I know it's not the best attitude, but if this ever happened to me I would simply pirate all the books I'd purchased from amazon, side load them onto my kindle and keep reading guilt free.
A part of me would like to dump amazon due to stories like this, but at the end of the day the whole set up is just too convenient (I can find, 'buy', and start reading a book in less than a minute directly from my kindle)
The worst part is that attitudes like mine are probably a big part of the reason Amazon will continue to get away with this. The even worse part is that I just don't care enough to do anything about it.
I wonder how many others there are like me who should know better, but enjoy the convenience too much?
I've had some friends caution me over the fact that I have a "license to read" my Amazon purchased books as opposed to "own" them, however that really never hit home until now. I understand this is the way the business model works, but the customer service presented here is terrible, no indication whatsoever as to what the real problem is and no way to find out, which is sad because usually Amazon has pretty good customer service (well in my experience, I've been using Amazon for about a decade now, and customer service sucked until around 2004 or so I think when it seemed to get better).
The worst part about this isn't so much the remote wipe of the device, but the eternal banning of the customer without recourse.
It doesn't matter if it's 30 or 50 years from now; this person has been told that for the rest of their life, until they die, that they are never again able to become a customer.
Sounds like a long time to be banned without being told why.
So even if we assume that Amazon was correct and that this account was closed because it was linked to another account that was closed because of 'abuse'.
I don't understand how that would justify or require revoking access to stuff that was already bought/licensed? You could simply deny the offending user access to buying new stuff instead.
A sentence like "We wish you luck in locating a retailer better able to meet your needs and will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters" is the best explanation of the evil of monopoly.
Surely this is what a small claims court could be used for?
I haven't read the Amazon TOS but is it really as simple as "you rent this book for as long as we feel like and we can revoke it for no reason"?
In which case I would be somewhat surprised if this really held up in a court, for example what happens if you buy a book and they immediately decide to revoke the license 1 second after purchase?
[+] [-] cs702|13 years ago|reply
Yet that's pretty much what Amazon did to this poor woman, except in the digital realm: Amazon 'broke and entered' into her Kindle, took away all her books, and then did not give her a straightforward explanation as to why they did so.
More alarmingly, Amazon did this with impunity, because this woman never really owned "her" books or, for that matter, anything else she "purchased" on "her" Kindle. In the digital realm, what Amazon did to this woman is perfectly legal.
Legal or not, this looks, smells, and feels so obviously wrong, it ought to be illegal.
[+] [-] techsupporter|13 years ago|reply
"While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts, please know that we have reviewed your account on the basis of the information provided and regret to inform you that it will not be reopened."
This happens more frequently: Google says this all the time, based on posts here; Amazon now does the same thing; even apartment rental companies will say "you've been turned down on the basis of this report that we don't know the contents of."
If your company can't reveal specific reasons or steps behind why an action was taken, DON'T TAKE THAT ACTION. Even my credit card issuer will tell me exactly why my card was flagged and they deal with ACTUAL MONEY. All these statements do is infuriate customers, create bad press, and drive away other customers. Scammers will just back up, look at their entire operation, and hammer away again with 300 new accounts so all you've accomplished is pissing off customers who want to do business with you.
[+] [-] sunir|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e40|13 years ago|reply
Normally, I would have voted with my pocket book, but in this case they had the sole source of the item (for a time). I also wanted to cost them a huge amount of time for their error.
[+] [-] roguecoder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymouz|13 years ago|reply
Essentially, as a customer one is often limited to submitting requests through web forms and receiving boilerplate answers (if at all) that lead nowhere if the case at hand is somewhat nonstandard, or to spend endless hours circulating through similarly scripted phone support hotlines, without ever reaching somebody that can actually fix the problem.
Kafka would be hard pressed to top some of those customer support experiences.
[+] [-] oliwarner|13 years ago|reply
That's a specific example where it might not be legal but I agree that this is widespread and there are lots of things in the real world where it would be fine to tell you, but they choose not to. In my experience this is to protect internal process (so you can't cite why they're idiots) or so that they can sell you another product (credit score improvement, etc).
But I do agree, the withholding of detail is widespread to a point where it suggests people just plain don't want to tell you anything.
[+] [-] jaachan|13 years ago|reply
[1] Won't, of course.
[+] [-] zobzu|13 years ago|reply
Then they just unflag it after I answer 10 security questions and that's it.
Pisses me off every time.
[+] [-] stuaxo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cletus|13 years ago|reply
Now I can't speak to the truth of these claims. I have no inside knowledge but I will say this: be skeptical of such stories. I have seen other stories like this on HN where I have had some inside knowledge and I can tell you that there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies.
It's a common theme to have a post of "[BigCo] shut down my account for no reason". I describe such stories as "unverifiable stories in which the poster is a victim".
Like I said, this could all be exactly as the poster claims but it might not be as well. It could be as simple as the person having the same name as someone who got blocked in the US. Who knows? Amazon needs to be extremely careful to be right in situations like this or they risk undermining the ecosystem they've spent so long to create.
I don't mind buying Kindle novels because I tend to only ever read them once. And if they were $6 (like the paperbacks often are) I'd view them as a throwaway purchase.
But when it comes to technical books--books I'll often refer back to and that can cost much more--I'll have to make sure I either only buy the PDF version or I buy the PDF+mobi+epub upgrade from the publisher after buying the Kindle book (2 thumbs up to publishers who do this BTW).
[+] [-] maratd|13 years ago|reply
Don't be too skeptical. Most of the people on HN had some big company restrict/kill an account by some BigCo at some point.
Microsoft, Google, eBay, PayPal, Amazon, Facebook, etc. handle millions of accounts. They have automated filters that trigger based on specified criteria that kill your account.
Their default response when this happens? Talk to legal. Well, more like write to legal. They don't want to talk to you.
The problem? Microsoft has your operating system, Google has your email, eBay has your stuff, PayPal has your money, Amazon has your books, Facebook has your social life, etc.
And they can yank all of that away.
They don't even press any button. It's triggered automatically by criteria they never disclose beyond a vague TOS.
We need to push for a universal option for arbitration by a 3rd party regarding these sorts of unilateral actions. If anything, it will probably reduce the support and legal costs for all of these companies.
[+] [-] tjoff|13 years ago|reply
Deny continued service? Sure (though hardly in the way that is portrayed in the post, you must be able to know why and contest it). Remotely brick hardware and deletion of user data? Never, ever, ever. No - don't even think about thinking about it. NO.
[+] [-] ianstormtaylor|13 years ago|reply
And?! That would be a horrible reason for deleting all of a user's purchased items. More reason for these types of posts to exist. The situation itself doesn't really matter, but bringing attention to the possible dangers of DRM is important. The fact that we don't own these DRMed items is incredibly scary.
"there have definitely been cases that vary between being one side of the story to being a distortion of facts and events to being outright lies."
Okay.. but without data this is just a vague anecdote.
If all you're trying to say is "be careful", well alright. But honestly I don't care. The story itself isn't that important in these cases as long as people are thinking about what the possible dangers of DRM are. And they are really big dangers.
These types of posts are the only action an individual can take when pitted against a big company.
[+] [-] abhaga|13 years ago|reply
Our email correspondence with them was very similar to the one reported in the original post. They will repeat the original mail 2-3 times and will walk away after that leaving you with no answers.
[+] [-] pnathan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tripzilch|13 years ago|reply
Hmmm, just because a $6 paperback may seem like a throwaway price to you doesn't mean they are single-use products. That's consumerism gone crazy.
I have to admit, I too have a real hard time keeping a cheap paperback presentable after its 2nd or 3rd read (or in subsequent reads, readable, for that matter). I don't know how people do it, so I just make a point to warn my friends about this habit whenever they let me lend one of theirs (and they invariably say "oh I like it when a book looks like it's been read."--sure thing, that'll be no problem!).
Still, that doesn't mean I see them as throwaways, rather I see them as fragile, and IMO the ebook form should lessen this attribute when possible, instead of mimicking (in some sense) it with DRM.
[+] [-] tinco|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwg|13 years ago|reply
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
[+] [-] wtrk|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chanux|13 years ago|reply
Dear Amazon,
Your service was really nice to me so far. But I happened to read a news that was not comforting. Following is a link to the story. http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/
This makes me hesitant about making any future purchases. I understand your right to act against any abuse but I also believe that users have a right know what was really going on, especially when they are being totally banished.
This email is to direct your attention towards the problem so you can have another chance of finishing things in a nicer way. I strongly believe DRM sucks but I also believe there are valid reasons for it to be there. The problem is not black or white. I'd like to see a solution that is acceptable for both parties (Amazon and the customer).
Thank you
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/kindle-help.html/r...
[+] [-] andyjohnson0|13 years ago|reply
The Guardian is running a story [1] today about how Amazon forces publishers to cover the cost of 20% VAT (sales tax) on ebook sales, even though it only pays 3% to the Luxembourg government (where it is based for tax purposes). It also insists that if a publisher offers a better price to another retailer then it must offer the same price to Amazon.
They also pay no corporation tax in the UK, despite sales of more than £3.3bn/yr [2], through being based in Luxembourg.
I was going to jump ship to The Book Depository, but Amazon bought them last year. Its hard to understand why this was allowed by the competition regulator, and it doesn't give me much confidence that the UK government has much interest in limiting their control of multiple markets.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/oct/21/amazon-forc...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-brit...
[+] [-] qw|13 years ago|reply
I wouldn't be surprised if someone higher up sees her issues and activates her account. But I can't trust my money to a company where you could lose access to books worth thousands if you talk with the wrong person.
[+] [-] bruceboughton|13 years ago|reply
Vodafone, Amazon, Starbucks, Google, Apple, ...
[+] [-] pragmatictester|13 years ago|reply
"Better World Books is a self-sustaining, for-profit social venture whose mission is to capitalize on the value of the book to fund literacy initiatives locally, nationally and around the world. We partner with nearly 1400 libraries and over 1800 college campuses across the U.S. and Canada, collecting unwanted textbooks and library discards in support of non-profit literacy programs. We have raised millions of dollars for literacy, saved millions of books from landfills, created jobs for hundreds of people, and provided wonderful books to millions of readers worldwide."
[+] [-] phireal|13 years ago|reply
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/ is pretty good, particularly for difficult to find and second hand books. I've found more and more recently that play.com does almost as well as (and often better than) Amazon in terms of price, although I don't know much about their business tactics.
[+] [-] alsothings|13 years ago|reply
[1]http://www.foyles.co.uk/
[+] [-] homeomorphic|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwr|13 years ago|reply
When making a decision whether to buy or not, I look at the price and consider whether I'm willing to pay this much to rent the book for an indeterminate amount of time, possibly as little as 3 months. Quite often it turns out that the price is too high. But I never delude myself that I actually "own" any of the DRM-restricted content that I paid for.
[+] [-] nodata|13 years ago|reply
Good for you. Nobody else outside of HN does.
[+] [-] masklinn|13 years ago|reply
I don't buy e-books. It would annoy me to be locked out of e.g. a steam account or a Google Play account or an AppStore account or whatever, but I'd manage. Not having access to my books, that is something which wouldn't fly, books have been close friends for all my life, so I will remain physical-only until and unless DRMs are dropped from ebooks, as I did with music. I just don't see the benefits as worth the risk.
Seeing DRM'd ebooks as short-term rental is an interesting idea though. I would see myself "renting" an ebook for a buck. For the same price as the mass-market paperback it still makes no sense.
[+] [-] netcan|13 years ago|reply
Most of the people I know do too... more or less. I treat all digital (-ly distributed) content as "rental." The reality is that "ownership" of digital property is different from ownership of physical property emotionally, legally and practically.
[+] [-] hpguy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mysterywhiteboy|13 years ago|reply
Because it appears to be Amazon UK dealing with the account holder I'd be interested to know if she would get anywhere by submitting a Subject Information Request [1].
Under the Data Protection Act 1998 an individual can submit a request for personal information held by an organization and they must comply within 40 days.
Whether she would get the information she is interested in, i.e. which account she is linked to, is another question.
[1] http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/personal_information/ho...
[+] [-] lancewiggs|13 years ago|reply
It's the game that many people play - trying to find the best Amazon (or Apple) store when they live and travel between countries. This means a constant struggle to find a combination of credit card, store with enough content (The US is best) and a local address (virtual and actual) to satisfy arcane internal rules.
Please Amazon - please move to one global store where any credit card from any country can purchase any edition of any book. Please Amazon and Apple, let us combine content from multiple stores into one account, and let us have a global price based on the best market. Yo usell more stuff, we but more as well.
Meanwhile take the chance to collect, and pay to the local authorities, consumption/sales tax based on the location of the IP address, not the credit card or address of the buyer. That way if someone is standing in the UK, buying content from the USA, then they pay UK tax (VAT), making it fairer versus the physical and local virtual alternatives.
[+] [-] oliwarner|13 years ago|reply
1. Complain. Keep complaining all the way to the top.
2. Sue. If complaining doesn't get you want you've paid for (or your money back, inc the Kindle you now can't use), you've just been robbed and you need to take legal action. You might think you're under a billion and five EULAs but when challenged, courts seem to side with the user when the EULAs attempt to restrict rights that they're not allowed to impinge upon. There are various sales laws that are protected well beyond the words of an EULA.
If you don't do anything about it, you make it worse for everybody else because <<insert horrid company here>> thinks they can get away with it now.
[+] [-] jonno|13 years ago|reply
Also, actually writing letters is a great idea, I find it gets much more attention than filling a web form or firing off a hasty email. When you lick that stamp you're showing a company you're willing to put some effort in.
[+] [-] run4yourlives|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kabdib|13 years ago|reply
The DRM'd books are a different story. I still want my son to be able to read them, but I have no assurance that the ebooks will be available to him fifteen years from now.
So I yank the DRM from all of my Amazon purchases. These I put on backups. I do not share them.
I would like to see legislation about the ownership of digital content, requiring that purchased content be accessible /at all times/ -- held in escrow, if necessary. Clearly defining a purchase is probably part of this.
[+] [-] dendory|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewpi|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattBearman|13 years ago|reply
A part of me would like to dump amazon due to stories like this, but at the end of the day the whole set up is just too convenient (I can find, 'buy', and start reading a book in less than a minute directly from my kindle)
The worst part is that attitudes like mine are probably a big part of the reason Amazon will continue to get away with this. The even worse part is that I just don't care enough to do anything about it.
I wonder how many others there are like me who should know better, but enjoy the convenience too much?
[+] [-] nowarninglabel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixelcort|13 years ago|reply
It doesn't matter if it's 30 or 50 years from now; this person has been told that for the rest of their life, until they die, that they are never again able to become a customer.
Sounds like a long time to be banned without being told why.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
I don't understand how that would justify or require revoking access to stuff that was already bought/licensed? You could simply deny the offending user access to buying new stuff instead.
[+] [-] donapieppo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chillax|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
I haven't read the Amazon TOS but is it really as simple as "you rent this book for as long as we feel like and we can revoke it for no reason"?
In which case I would be somewhat surprised if this really held up in a court, for example what happens if you buy a book and they immediately decide to revoke the license 1 second after purchase?