Quote:
Originally Posted by knc1
There is a boundary there, somewhere, that gets crossed when passing from the realm of a dedicated device for a specific purpose and a multipurpose (or potential multipurpose) device.
Perhaps I would get laughted out of court, at least as I posed my argument.
But I don't think that means there isn't a boundary that needs to become defined legally.
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As a non-lawyer, I would say that the boundary is crossed when the device is advertised as being able to allow the user to install applications on it, which eInk Kindles are not.
You may have more of a case were you to argue that Amazon are putting competitors at a disadvantage in pre-installing their own reading app on the Fire tablet, although I'm sure that Amazon's lawyers will have carefully considered the matter. I'm sure someone would have sued Apple (everyone likes to sue Apple
) had they been breaking any law in giving iBooks "preferential" status on the iPad.
The specific thing which put Microsoft in the wrong legally, as I understand it, is that they were considered to be exploiting an effective monopoly position. Amazon are not in a monopoly position, or anything close to it. Unless you're a monopoly, there's no law saying that you have to be nice to your competitors.