Bezos apologises for Kindle Owellian misstep

Michael Geist reports that Jeff Bezos has apologised for remotely deleting people's copies of Animal Farm and 1984 from customers' Kindles.

"Without any warning or consent, Amazon remotely deleted copies of two books from thousands of Kindle devices. Few customers were aware that Amazon retained the technical capability to erase ebooks from their devices. Yet, when the company learned that two books had been distributed without proper authorization, it simply deleted the books and promised a refund.

The case proved that fact is often stranger than fiction since the books were George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, conjuring up new images of the Orwellian vision of information control...

While Amazon has since apologized and promised that it won't repeat the Orwell misstep, the reality is that this incident is only the latest in a long line in which companies prove to be their own worst enemy by undermining consumer confidence in the digital economy."