Amazon has opened a hornets nest!

[chrisanthropic]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

We have always been at war with Eurasia.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

[taustin]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

It sounds to me like there was a mistake in the email, and that Compass is actually free even after the trial period.

Which makes it spam rather than fraud. Of course, Spamazon has a long, long history of spamming its customers, so there's nothing new there.

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Still not cool, but quite different from signing people up for a paid service behind their backs.

That would be illegal, of course. By law, if you didn't agree to it in advance, it's free.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by taustin

Which makes it spam rather than fraud. Of course, Spamazon has a long, long history of spamming its customers, so there's nothing new there.



That would be illegal, of course. By law, if you didn't agree to it in advance, it's free.

I actually found it amusing, since the New York Times erroneously sent millions of nytimes.com users a home subscription cancellation notice that same week. Many of them (including me) were not home subscribers to begin with.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

Well, I'm sure it'll all be over soon enough...and people will forget - just like 1984.

Are you referring to the ebook that Amazon pulled from its shelves because it turned out to be an illegal copy? I remember there was a big stink about it at the time since some people had paid for the book and there was the matter of being reimbursed not to mention notified that said book wasn't a legal copy and was going to be pulled.

[MrsJoseph]

Originally Posted by crich70

Are you referring to the ebook that Amazon pulled from its shelves because it turned out to be an illegal copy? I remember there was a big stink about it at the time since some people had paid for the book and there was the matter of being reimbursed not to mention notified that said book wasn't a legal copy and was going to be pulled.

Yep, that's what I'm referring to.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by crich70

Are you referring to the ebook that Amazon pulled from its shelves because it turned out to be an illegal copy? I remember there was a big stink about it at the time since some people had paid for the book and there was the matter of being reimbursed not to mention notified that said book wasn't a legal copy and was going to be pulled.

The big stink was the fact that Amazon had the ability to remove content remotely! They reached right into peoples homes and stole books they had already paid for. Someone should have went to prison for that one...

[taustin]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

The big stink was the fact that Amazon had the ability to remove content remotely!

. . . after publicly insisting from before the Kindle was on the market that they did not have the ability to do so.

That was what made it such a big deal. Well, that, and it was a very slow news day.

(And, if you really dig for facts, it turns out it was probably mostly Amazon's fault for a broken system of filtering what could be sold where. The company that put the book up for sale was Canadian, where it was in the public domain, and they said they'd marked it as for sale in Canada only, but Amazon's servers offered it up in the US as well.)

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

The big stink was the fact that Amazon had the ability to remove content remotely! They reached right into peoples homes and stole books they had already paid for. Someone should have went to prison for that one...

Yes, and it should have been the person who tried to profit from something that wasn't theirs.

As for the book stealing, if Amazon wants to give me 30 bucks every time they steal a book, I'll let them steal all of mine.

[taustin]

[QUOTE=pidgeon92;1916924]Yes, and it should have been the person who tried to profit from something that wasn't theirs.QUOTE]

Actually, the company that did it was operating entirely legally in Canada, where the books in question are not longer under copyright.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

Yes, and it should have been the person who tried to profit from something that wasn't theirs.

Posted by taustin:
Actually, the company that did it was operating entirely legally in Canada, where the books in question are not longer under copyright.

Ah so it was a jurisdictional foul up based on copyright law as pertaining geographical differences as well then. Proof that there should be a universal copyright law perhaps. I agree it wasn't right for Amazon to just pull books remotely like they did though it's a moot point in the case of 1984 since they did do it. Hopefully the resulting backlash will have persuaded them not to do so again anyway.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by crich70

I agree it wasn't right for Amazon to just pull books remotely like they did though it's a moot point in the case of 1984 since they did do it. Hopefully the resulting backlash will have persuaded them not to do so again anyway.

They can do it again if they want, because I've liberated my copies of 1984 and Animal Farm

[HappyMartin]

Just as well Much Ado About Nothing is in the public domain or this thread would be in serious trouble.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by crich70

Ah so it was a jurisdictional foul up based on copyright law as pertaining geographical differences as well then. Proof that there should be a universal copyright law perhaps. I agree it wasn't right for Amazon to just pull books remotely like they did though it's a moot point in the case of 1984 since they did do it. Hopefully the resulting backlash will have persuaded them not to do so again anyway.

Given the circumstances, since they had the ability to do so, they didn't have much choice, legally. Amazon's real mistake was lying about having the ability - when they introducted the Kindle, part of the online chatter was over whether you would be buying or renting books on it. And Amazon made it clear that once you bought the book, it was yours. They lied.

(Amazon has a history from Day One of being, in my humble, entirely unsupported opinion, sleasy. They went from being a good idea to one of the most successful online businesses, in part, from spamming the living hell out of any email address they could find, especially their own customers. It was with great apparent reluctance - under intense pressure from the public - that they introduced account settings that let you opt out of ads, and then started periodically resetting them all to "spam the hell out of me until the heat death of the universe" every few months or so. To many, they are still Spamazon because of this.)

[carld]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

Just as well Much Ado About Nothing is in the public domain or this thread would be in serious trouble.

Nah, you can't copyright titles anyway.

Edit: Also, what spam is Amazon supposedly burying people in? They sure don't send much of anything to me, aside from order receipts, and they've had my email for years.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by carld

Edit: Also, what spam is Amazon supposedly burying people in? They sure don't send much of anything to me, aside from order receipts, and they've had my email for years.

I did say in their early years.