Because they can: Amazon deletes books from Kindles, remotely

Jeff Bezos apologizes (after being caught out):

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has issued an apology to Kindle customers after [books] were remotely deleted from their electronic readers.

"This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of '1984' and other novels on Kindle," the Amazon chief executive said in a post on Thursday on the Kindle Community discussion forum.

"Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles [yeah! just look at the shills proliferating on the site! Harriet Klausner anyone? Six books a day for a decade, all five stars -- them are fancy principles, we know.]," Bezos wrote.

"It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received," he said. "We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."

Bezos' apology came a week after unauthorized copies of "1984" and "Animal Farm" were wiped from Kindle readers in a move that triggered privacy concerns and drew unfavorable comparisons to Big Brother-like behavior.

Lessons learnt: they can do it. Kindle-loving dumbos paid over two hundred dollars for someone to be able to keep tabs on them, congratulations. That's why I will never buy a Kindle or Kindle-like device (in addition to the cost of it). That is also why the new Google OS will be a flop. No one needs someone else's hands in one's pockets.