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<h1 class="title-news"> Amazon Allegedly Deletes Customer's Kindle;
Incident Triggers Discussion About Ebooks, DRM </h1>
<div class="comments_datetime_new border_none relative v05">
<p> <span class="posted-and-updated"> Posted: <span
itemprop="datePublished">10/22/2012 4:36 pm EDT</span>
Updated: <span itemprop="dateModified">10/22/2012 4:41 pm <br>
</span></span></p>
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<p>Linn's story, which appeared on Bekkelund's blog on Monday, has
already triggered a <a
href="http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/11vz4g/amazon_closes_womans_account_and_wipes_her_kindle/"
target="_hplink">heated discussion</a> about ebooks and digital
rights management (DRM), with some calling this Amazon incident an
example of DRM at its worst. </p>
<p>"[The incident] <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-customers-kindle-deletes-account"
target="_hplink">highlights the power [DRM] offers blue-chip
companies</a>. DRM is used by hardware manufacturers and
publishers to limit the use of digital content once it has been
purchased by consumers; in Amazon's case, it means the company can
prevent you from reading content you have bought at the Kindle
store on a rival device," the Guardian writes.</p>
<p>This is not the first time that Amazon has remotely erased Kindle
content. </p>
<p>As <a
href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/amazon-account-ban-reminds-us-drm-content-is-only-rented/"
target="_hplink">Andy Boxall of Digital Trends</a> notes, the
company <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html"
target="_hplink">deleted copies of "Animal Farm" and "1984"</a>
in 2009. It also occured in 2010, "<a
href="http://www.teleread.com/ebooks/amazon-removes-incest-related-erotica-titles-from-store-kindle-archive/"
target="_hplink">when more dubious titles were removed too."</a></p>
<p>"<a
href="http://consumerist.com/2012/10/22/amazon-erases-customers-kindle-wishes-her-luck-in-finding-somewhere-else-to-shop/"
target="_hplink">Amazon should not be able to erase content that
has already been downloaded</a>. If the company wants to close
your account, fine; refuse future downloads. But unless it has
proof that the books on that Kindle had been fraudulently
downloaded, we don’t see how the company can justify erasing
content that had been paid for by a customer," the Consumerist
notes, adding that Amazon had yet to respond to a request for
comment. </p>
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