Jeff Bezos Apologizes for Kindlegate, but Can’t Promise It Won’t Happen Again
by Peter Kafka
Posted on July 23, 2009 at 8:01 PM PT
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t make it to his company’s earnings call today, but he did find time to apologize for Kindlegate–Amazon’s boneheaded removal of George Orwell novels from his customers’ e-book readers.
Here’s the text of his mea culpa, posted at a company-hosted bulletin board:
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.
With deep apology to our customers,
Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com
If you’re feeling petty, you can note that this apology took six days to arrive. But that would make you petty. A bigger person would say that Bezos’ self-flagellation is pitch-perfect in every aspect and a rare admission of fallibility from an American leader.
Great, right?
Almost. Now all we need is for Amazon (AMZN) to promise that it won’t go into your Kindle and take away something you bought, ever again. But the e-commerce giant won’t say that.
Instead, it’s left open a big, worrisome loophole that it refuses to close. Amazon says it won’t forcibly remove your content from your Kindle “in these circumstances.” But it won’t say what circumstances would prompt it to take back product it’s sold.
That’s dumb. And doubly so coming from Amazon, a company that succeeds in large part because of its well-deserved reputation for kick-ass customer service.
And let’s be honest: Very few Kindle buyers are worried about losing their e-books in the middle of the night. And if Amazon wants to reserve the right to do this again, for specific reasons, well, that’s cool, too. Just spell it out, one way or another, and we can all move on.
Comments
I’m not so concerned about “removal” as I am waking up some fine morning in the future to find that all of my ebooks have been automatically “updated” during the night.
Perhaps all of the offending parts have been removed or sanitized, or (shades of 1984) history itself has been revised.
Especially if Palin or some other “I’m justified in cramming my personal morals down your throat” right-wing-type gets into office.
Who needs an entire Ministry of Truth when you can do the same thing with a few keystrokes?
Posted by Michael Long at July 23rd, 2009 at 10:21 pmHey Bezos, Are yu going to come to our houses next to burn the books we bought from you? I bought a copy of Ray Bradbury – Farenheit 451!
I was on the fence about buying a Kindle. Now I fell on the absolutely NOT side.
Posted by Stephen Antonucci at July 24th, 2009 at 6:24 amQuite a Kafkaesque memo (And two moronic comments thus far.) I’d be more worried about the Obamamaniacs than Amazon (Or S. Palin).
Posted by Tom Stephenson at July 24th, 2009 at 4:54 pm