[Infowarrior] - Amazon takes the TSA approach

[Richard Forno]

(c/o AJR)

Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121022/07340420786/amazon-wipes-customers-account-locks-all-ebooks-says-find-new-retailer-when-she-asks-why.shtml


Techdirt has been warning people for several years that they don't really own the ebooks they have on their Amazon Kindles. The most famous demonstration of this was the sudden disappearance of ebook versions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm (you can't make this stuff up.) But that's nothing compared to what an Amazon customer in Norway now claims the company has done: shut down her Amazon account permanently and locked her Kindle -- all without explanation.

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Unhelpfully, then, Amazon simply re-iterated that the newly-closed account was "related" to another, previously blocked account, wouldn't say why, and emphasized that this was an irrevocable ban, even to the extent of refusing to allow the person accused of this unspecified transgression to open any other account at any point in the future.

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Of course, this is a totally Kafkaesque situation: found guilty of a crime you are not allowed to know, with no way to appeal. Over on Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow has an interesting theory about what might be the issue here:

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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.