Goodreads integration UK - I want my money back

[Dee Q]

Why? I do have GI here in my country. BTW, I don't think it's pretty much of use, however. I'd prefer the site itself.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by shanghaichica

Oh cool thanks. Its only £49.99. I might have to get one.

You can find more details here.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by fearindex

...UK and Germany (and some others) have local Kindle stores for local markets in addition to this on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de respectively. There you are actually shopping with, e.g. Amazon.de for the Kindle content, but you can do this with only and Amazon.de account, a Kindle registered to Amazon.de - and I believe you are allowed (whatever that means) to use Amazon.de account only for Kindle content from those countries supported by Amazon.de for Kindle content (German speaking markets?). There was a case where a UK Kindle owner got into trouble with Amazon after moving to Norway, or something like that, and continuing to use the UK store (instead of the U.S. international store)....

Lots of us use several countries for buying their Amazon eBooks.
I've got my German Amazon account for physical shipments. Within this account, I've got a US and a UK shipment address. I only have to change the country in my Kindle account. Then I can buy from the US or UK, I even don't have to change my billing address. I use the very same billing address and (German) credit card, from whatever Amazon country I'm buying.
There have been rumors about Amazon restricting this. And in fact, a few years ago, I've received emails from Amazon maybe 3 times. Something like "did you move recently". But I've never faced any troubles, nor have I seen anything like that in this forum.

[fearindex]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Lots of us use several countries for buying their Amazon eBooks.
I've got my German Amazon account for physical shipments. Within this account, I've got a US and a UK shipment address. I only have to change the country in my Kindle account. Then I can buy from the US or UK, I even don't have to change my billing address. I use the very same billing address and (German) credit card, from whatever Amazon country I'm buying.
There have been rumors about Amazon restricting this. And in fact, a few years ago, I've received emails from Amazon maybe 3 times. Something like "did you move recently". But I've never faced any troubles, nor have I seen anything like that in this forum.

That is good to know and good info.

For physical deliveries it is of course very common to use just about any Amazon (shipping restrictions may apply) and even forwarding service addresses to ship the items if restrictions apply. I don't see any issues with this, nor do I think Amazon has any issues with this.

Personally I'd be a little hesitant to use not-my-country Amazon for digital downloads though. I use Amazon.com "international" account with the country set to my real country of residence. The licensing of books is often done region by region (even from Amazon.com sometimes they refuse to sell some book to international markets because of this) and if they notice someone bypassing those restrictions with whatever means, they might feel the pressure of the publishers to interfere - and with Kindle they have much more power to interfere than with.

That said, that is just my personal view. Some people use Calibre and legality of that depends on the region etc.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by fearindex

...Personally I'd be a little hesitant to use not-my-country Amazon for digital downloads though. I use Amazon.com "international" account with the country set to my real country of residence. The licensing of books is often done region by region (even from Amazon.com sometimes they refuse to sell some book to international markets because of this) and if they notice someone bypassing those restrictions with whatever means, they might feel the pressure of the publishers to interfere...

I'd have to check Amazon's general business terms.
But if I remember correctly, the phrase was something like "address has to be valid".
Meaning: When Amazon did send me a few emails about 3 years ago ("did you move recently?"), I told them:
My main residency still is the German one. But I'm frequently on business trips, often for months. Then the US or UK become my formal residencies. And that's even kind of true. The addresses I gave for the US and the UK had been the offices of my (back then) employer.
So, actually I don't see, how I could have broken any laws or even business terms.
The addresses are (have been) valid. I don't think, the business terms insisted on me living there permanently, only for the time being.
So I'd make sure of 2 things:
a.) The address has to be valid.
b.) I even could prove some relation to that address. Rumor has it, never had been so many residents living in the FBI headquarters, the WhiteHouse and whatever addresses in the US you can Google. I wouldn't overdo it, just use the address of a relative or something like that.

BTW:
I guess, the policy is "no harm, no foul".
Same for the infamous gift cards in iTunes. I buy most of my movies and TV shows from iTunes in the US: Faster to the market, in the original English version and even a bit cheaper.
Apple easily could insist on a US credit card as a backup, instead of solely allowing for gift cards. This still would be solvable, for example by using virtual or pre-paid cards. But it certainly would complicate things.
But there's actually no harm done. Apple and the TV studio have got their money. And even the German TV studios didn't loose any business. I've bought the US version, not the German one, from the US.
Same with eBooks.
I only buy an English eBook from Amazon US, if I can't get it in the German Amazon store: No one lost any business.

[fearindex]

Just to clarify, I didn't mean to suggest anyone was necessarily breaking any rules - more that I am a little paranoid (after that one Norway/UK episode, forgot the link where that was) Amazon might start enforcing more strict policies than they have - including theoretically making some of your content no longer available (without removing DRM).

The legality and legal enforceability of terms of service regarding regionally restricted content is one quite complex thing, especially since regional legislation surely differs etc. - I'm more worried that Amazon might simply pull the plug on some Kindle account or content that they themselves deem offending for whatever reason (reasonable or not). That would be very inconvenient for the user.

[zamana]

Nevermind.