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Amazon kindles new privacy concerns
Farhad Manjoo
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
KAI RYSSDAL: This has been a busy week for Amazon. Their earnings report yesterday didn't quite meet expectations. Still, the company's doing well enough. It bought the online shoe store Zappos Wednesday. But it's what Amazon did last week that's getting most of the buzz.
Owners of Amazon's Kindle woke up last Thursday to find a few things missing from their e-book reader. Amazon reached into their devices overnight and deleted copies of the George Orwell classics 1984 and Animal Farm. It did refund the purchase price. Amazon says the books had been illegally offered for sale on its virtual store and it was only trying to protect the rightful owners' copyright. The company has since promised to stop remotely deleting people's books.
Commentator Farhad Manjoo doesn't expect that promise will be kept.
Farhad Manjoo: The worst thing about this story isn't Amazon's conduct; it's the company's technical capabilities. Now we know that Amazon can delete anything it wants from your electronic reader. That's an awesome power, and it's destined to be abused.
Most of the e-books, videos and mobile apps that we buy online aren't really ours. All this media comes to us with digital strings that stretch back to a single decider -- Amazon, Apple, or whomever -- because our devices are now connected to the Internet. Many of these firms' contracts give them broad rights to remove any book, movie or app that you've purchased, at any time, for any reason.
But why stop there? If Apple or Amazon can decide to delete stuff you've legally purchased, then surely a court -- or, to channel Orwell, perhaps even a totalitarian regime -- could force them to do the same. When books were banned in the past, governments could, at best, only block the sale of new copies. But in the digital era, they can go much further.
So far, Amazon has only deleted books that were already available in print. But in our paperless future -- when all books exist as files on servers -- courts would have the power to make works vanish completely. With a simple ruling over a copyright dispute or a claim of libel, judges could simultaneously block the sale of new books and pull all current copies out of circulation.
The power to delete your books, movies and music remotely is a power no one should have. Here's one way around this: Don't buy a Kindle until Amazon updates its terms of service to prohibit remote deletions. Even better, the company ought to remove the technical capability to do so, making such a mass evisceration impossible in the event that a government compels it.
But these problems are bigger than a few select companies. They stem from the legal system's inability to deal with tethered technology. What we really need are new laws -- or else the future could look a lot like Orwell's 1984.
Ryssdal: Farhad Manjoo is the technology columnist for Slate.com.
I advise everyone to question their privacy and the possible abuse of their personal information on AMAZ0N. There is a strong likelihood that your personal information can be abused by third party entities that operate through the AMAZ0N.
I really enjoyed Mr. Manjoo's story, unfortunately he never mentioned DRM (Digital Rights Management), although he did allude to it.
DRM protections are used by Amazon and other companies with the intention of protecting copyright and preventing unauthorized copying. However, they also enable companies to lock users out of the media they *thought* they had purchased. This scenario need no be malicious, consider what will happen to all those ebooks if Amazon were to cease operations or if they just decided to quit the ebook business. Although unlikely in Amazon's case, consider what happened when Yahoo! Music (last year) or MSN Music (the year before) closed up shop.
The unfortunate consequence is that pirates inevitably find a way to circumvent DRM (eventually, one way or another) and honest customers wind up paying the price when they find themselves locked out of their own media.
Hi there. I'm taking a web analytics course and we recently looked at cookies and privacy concerns. I'm running a survey and need 100 respondents - it would be great if any readers could help me out: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Z71x0mGSohHJkdzavFKucg_3d_3d
I have asked my wife for a Kindle when the 2009 holiday season rolls around. I've read the article above, which was brought to my attention by a friend who found it disturbing. I told him I was not at all concerned about what Amazon did.
There are a number of publications that are not available for the Kindle. These two somehow slipped through unnoticed. Amazon deleted them from customer Kindles and refunded their money, because Amazon didn't have the right to sell them in electronic form in the first place. It's just ironic that the books in question happened to be Orwell's two most famous creations dealing with the workings of totalitarianism. Should Amazon have notified Kindle owners before doing it? Perhaps. Was there evil intent in what they did? I doubt it.
I still want a Kindle despite this incident. The marketing model Amazon has put together for this device is about as clean as anything I could have thought up. The thing is, I have a house that is bursting with physical book cases full of books. I don't have any more room for physical books. With a Kindle, I can continue to acquire books, and I can carry them all with me wherever I go. If I don't want Amazon to have access to my Kindle when I'm not actually downloading a book, I can turn the transmitter / receiver off. Could they still delete books from my Kindle? Sure. But they'd have to refund my purchase price.
That home library I was talking about is full of books, most of which cost much more than $10.00. Amazon sells Kindle books for $10.00 each. In the long run, I'm going to spend a lot less on books. Am I worried about Amazon deleting my entire library? No. The consequences for Amazon would be huge, from a marketing standpoint, and perhaps from a number of legal standpoints. Am I worried about the government going to Amazon and demanding that all the books -- or certain books -- be deleted from everybody's Kindles? No. America isn’t perfect, but Americans have a tendency to stand up & fight when their broad rights are trampled upon.
The fact is, this is the direction in which we are headed, with materials and space becoming scarcer with each new day. Am I worried about a "Fahrenheit 231" scenario? No. Electronic books have a much better chance of surviving broad censorship than physical books. Finally, Amazon won't be the sole purveyor of non-physical books. Some day, they'll be just one of many. Physical books may someday only be published in leather-bound, acid-free paper editions for collectors who are willing to pay the price. I might still be willing to buy certain of those volumes, just to have them physically on my shelf, to feel their heft and texture. But most of my books will only exist in electronic form, available to me anywhere I go, at any time. And if my house burns down, or my Kindle gets stolen or lost, all I have to do is get a new Kindle and my entire library is restored. Every scenario has potential downsides. A conspiracy lurks beneath every rock. As I see it, Kindle's advantages far outweigh its disadvantages.
Manjoo makes a lot of sense, but I have to disagree. Not so much on his intent, I do agree Amazon shouldn't have the ability to remotely access one's Kindle. My disagreement is more so on the method books are sold and distributed on the Kindle in the first place. Amazon does have a responsibilty to absolve any copyright infringement. Just because someone legitimately purchased a bootleg doesn't mean they own it free and clear. Same with books. My alternate suggetion is that Amazon should consider the Rhapsody model for music. In other words, we wouldn't own the copy of the book, Amazon would. Customers would pay a montly subscription to access whatever books they want, it just won't be downloaded to the Kindle (or perhaps would download for a limited time). Then in the case of another copyright case, Amazon can remove the offending product without gaining access to our book reader.
Six months ago bloggers (notably Stephanie at UrbZen) warned about this kind of thing. See: http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/kindle-see-we-told-you-so/
I liked this article!
"[Amazon] was only trying to protect the rightful owners' copyright."
This quote says just as much about the current copyright laws as it does about Amazon. Keep in mind that George Orwell (aka Eric Arthur Blair) died in 1950, and Sonia Brownell Orwell (his second wife) died in 1980. The book was originally copyrighted by Harcourt Inc in 1949, and then the copyright was renewed by Sonia in 1977. Who is the "rightful owner" of the copyright, considering that the author himself has been dead for 59 years, and the last owner of the copyright have been dead for 28 years? How does it "promote the progress of science and useful arts" to keep books and other works locked up in a government-granted monopoly (copyright) like this?
Farhad is spot on with "What we really need are new laws -- or else the future could look a lot like Orwell's 1984." As it is now, 1984 will not enter the public domain until 2044 in the US. That's 95 years after it was written, and 94 years after the author died! Copyright law really does need to be revised. It's just ridiculous in its current state.
Even though I have a book coming out this fall, until I heard this piece I had not fully grappled with the implications of Amazon's decision to pull work from Kindle. Digital censorship is serious stuff. Thank you for drawing attention to the implications for free speech of both new technology and Amazon's practices.
