Amazon closed a Norwegian woman’s Amazon account AND DELETED all books off her Kindle for violating some secret Amazon policy.
Amazon will NOT disclose what policy she violated; nor restore her books; nor provide refunds for all the books that she purchased.
Moral of the story: You do NOT own ebooks (or downloaded music, movies or games). You are merely RENTING IT as a serfs from the digital landlord. As a serf, the only rights you have are given to you by the landlord, and can be revoked at whim.
This isn’t the first time Amazon played digital bully. In 2009, they settled a lawsuit for deleting 1984 from kindles (irony, thy name is Amazon!). See http://www.pcworld.com/article/172953/amazon_kindle_1984_lawsuit.html
Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation. This is DRM at it’s worst.Linn travels a lot and therefore has, or should I say had, a lot of books on her Kindle, purchased from Amazon. Suddenly, her Kindle was wiped and her account was closed. Being convinced that something wrong had happened, she sent an e-mail to Amazon, asking for help. This was the answer:
Dear Linn [last name], My name is Michael Murphy and I represent Executive Customer Relations within Amazon.co.uk. One of our mandates is to address the most acute account and order problems, and in this capacity your account and orders have been brought to my attention. We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled. Per our Conditions of Use which state in part: Amazon.co.uk and its affiliates reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion. Please know that any attempt to open a new account will meet with the same action. You may direct any questions to me at resolution-uk@amazon.co.uk. Thank you for your attention to this email. Regards Michael Murphy Executive Customer Relations Amazon.co.uk
