Amazon Fail 2.0: Bookseller's Big Brother removes Orwell's Big Brother from Kindles everywhere

[Dennis Baron]

There's a new post on the Web of Language:

Amazon Fail 2.0: Bookseller's Big Brother removes Orwell's Big Brother  
from Kindles everywhere

In a move worthy of George Orwell’s Big Brother, Amazon.com sent its  
thought police into Kindles everywhere to erase copies of “1984” and  
“Animal Farm.”

A few months ago, Amazon got into trouble with its customers for  
silently placing books about homosexuality in the “adult materials”  
category and removing their sales rankings. After a Twitter campaign  
under the rubric #amazonfail generated massive amounts of negative  
publicity, the bookseller reversed course, claiming that the problem  
resulted from a cataloging error, not a change in policy towards gays  
and lesbians.

Now, in a move that would seem to constitute not digital  
discrimination but electronic breaking and entering, they’ve done it  
again. After erasing the Orwells from Amazon's popular and pricey  
Kindle e-book reader, the nation’s largest bookseller informed  
customers in a brief email that it was refunding their purchase price  
($0.99 for each book) because the publisher had recalled the e-books.

Read the rest on the Web of Language:  http://tinyurl.com/weblang

____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage

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