Amazon’s Big Brother Blunder

Amazon sued for ironic 1984 blunder

Amazon’s Kindle has had a rough week in the press.  First, university students at Princeton leveled some harsh criticisms at the potential of the reader as an academic tool.  Now a second story has broken, also concerning an American student.

Justin D Gawronski sued Amazon after his copy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was removed remotely from his Kindle by the company along with all of his notes.  Amazon made the  Big Brother style decision to wipe the book after it discovered that the work was still in copyright.  Customers who had downloaded the ebook were offered the choice between a hard copy of the novel and a $30 Amazon voucher, but Gawronski was unimpressed and pushed for greater compensation.

In a landmark agreement Amazon has admitted that the move to delete the content was “stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles”, and has awarded the student $150,000.   The company has also guaranteed that it will not repeat this type of action and that material bought by its customers will be safe in the future.