Amazon boss apologises for Kindle deletions
Published: 24 Jul 2009 15:17 BST
Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos issued an apology on Thursday to customers over the company's surprise deletion of a number of books that Kindle owners had purchased and downloaded to their devices.
The chief executive posted the apology on Amazon's Kindle Community forum, where users are able to respond with their own replies — many of which simply thanked Bezos for broaching the subject.
Bezos told customers: "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."
Last week the company made waves after deleting several books from Kindle devices without the permission of their owners. The move was attributed to Amazon's self-service uploader, where a third party had added e-books to be sold on Amazon's store despite not having the rights to sell them.
As part of the deletion process Amazon credited those who had purchased the book with refunds. Regardless, many users became upset at the idea that anything else they had purchased could be taken back without their permission.
Credit: Amazon CEO apologizes for Kindle book deletions from CNET News
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