Quote:
Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan
I think you're missing a "small" point in your argument here. Following your analogy, they don't say that they don't sell only to Americans, they say that they don't sell if you're outside USA.
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That is not correct. For their distribution model it makes no practical difference where the customer is - electronically, he's right inside their server in America, so why discriminate against him? And how is sending a book by wire (which they refuse to do) is any different from sending it in a box by post (which they continue to do)? The only difference for them is that the customer is not American, and that's the reason they refuse to sell to him.
Furthermore, the worst of them refuse to sell even if the foreign customer is physically in America, which directly addresses your point and shows it to be incorrect. I tried to buy an Audible subscription last week, (and Audible is an Amazon company btw) - but knowing that a huge proportion of their titles (including the ones that were the reason to subscribe for me) were not available in Europe, I tried to register with my friend's US address. But as soon as I started filling in the details of my UK-registered VISA card, the site would automatically redirect me to the UK site. So even if I was actually staying in America, they would refuse to sell to me because they figured from my UK card that I'm not an American. And that is stark naked discrimination. Because of this idiocy they've lost the 225 dollars I was prepared to pay them for their 24 book credits in one go, and the title I wanted to download from them is actually available, it turns out, from at least three different torrents.