MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Closure of Account

disconnected · 12-24-2015, 01:20 AM

Amazon’s TOS is pretty appalling. It spells out everything we are allowed, or mostly not allowed, to do with our digital “purchases”. Amazon, on the other hand, at its sole discretion, is allowed to cut off access to our media without notice or recourse.

I don’t imagine that Amazon would actually want to have to explain or defend this position in court, or even to have it publicized in mainstream media, rather than just buried in the TOS fine print.

I suppose that Amazon (along with publishers) assumes that anyone that really cares is taking the obvious steps of stripping DRM and making backups, but they can hardly come right out and say so.

I’m a little surprised that they haven’t prepared some sort of response in advance though. It was always bound to happen at some point that enough people had spent enough money on digital media and then lost it (due to divorce, death of main account-holder, account-closure, etc.) that it would start to attract attention to the whole problem.

So far it seems that Amazon has been busy adding more and more complexity to accounts (user profiles, parental control, family sharing) in an attempt to quell any anxieties that people have about not truly having control of their libraries.

12-24-2015, 01:20 AM	#217
disconnected Fanatic Posts: 527 Karma: 4504715 Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: US Device: Kobo Forma, Libra, H2O2e2, Clara, Auras, Kindles, Nooks, Sony, iPAQ	Amazon’s TOS is pretty appalling. It spells out everything we are allowed, or mostly not allowed, to do with our digital “purchases”. Amazon, on the other hand, at its sole discretion, is allowed to cut off access to our media without notice or recourse. I don’t imagine that Amazon would actually want to have to explain or defend this position in court, or even to have it publicized in mainstream media, rather than just buried in the TOS fine print. I suppose that Amazon (along with publishers) assumes that anyone that really cares is taking the obvious steps of stripping DRM and making backups, but they can hardly come right out and say so. I’m a little surprised that they haven’t prepared some sort of response in advance though. It was always bound to happen at some point that enough people had spent enough money on digital media and then lost it (due to divorce, death of main account-holder, account-closure, etc.) that it would start to attract attention to the whole problem. So far it seems that Amazon has been busy adding more and more complexity to accounts (user profiles, parental control, family sharing) in an attempt to quell any anxieties that people have about not truly having control of their libraries.