I ask this because while Amazon has said it won’t repeat what it did last week, it hasn’t actually sworn off remote book-removal–or  remote anything-removal, for that matter–altogether.

Which means the e-commerce giant can do it again.

On Friday, Amazon told me that it yanked the George Orwell novels from customers’ e-book readers because they were “illegal”–bootlegged copies it never should have sold in the first place. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” the company said in a statement.

See the problem? It’s the, big, gaping “in these circumstances” loophole.

I’m still holding out a tiny bit of hope that Amazon (AMZN) is never going to delete a book, or anything it sells its customers, ever again. And that its oddly worded nonpromise is just an oddly worded nonpromise.

But I’ve repeatedly asked Amazon PR folks to mollify me, or at least spell out the circumstances in which they would delete a book again, and I haven’t gotten any response. So I’m fearing the worst: Amazon reserves the right to yank books out of your Kindle, but won’t tell you why or when until it happens.

If you want to play devil’s advocate, you can note that other e-commerce companies have similar abilities. Apple (AAPL) has disclosed that it has a “kill switch” that allows it to remotely wipe out apps from iPhones, ostensibly for security reasons.

And theoretically, the ability to wipe out a rogue iFart app should be as disconcerting as the ability to make a book disappear–intellectual property is intellectual property. But it just doesn’t rankle in the same way.

What to do? Slate columnist Farhad Manjoo wants new legislation to tackle the problem. But even if you like that approach, it’s not going to happen anytime soon–our lawmakers have full plates these days. My suggestion: Demand that Amazon, Apple or whoever else has remote access to your gadgets spell out exactly when, if ever, they will forcibly take back what they sold you. Or don’t buy from them at all.

The buzzy microblogging service has just grabbed its highest-profile Google (GOOG) exec to date: Alexander Macgillivray, a deputy general counsel at the search firm, is coming aboard as Twitter’s top lawyer.

Macgillivray is best known as the lead Google attorney on high-profile intellectual property cases like its fights with book publishers, the Associated Press and Viacom (VIA). Twitter has yet to find itself mired in that sort of thing, but give it time.

Macgillivray is just the latest Googler to land at Twitter. Earlier this year, the start-up nabbed Doug Bowman, the search giant’s lead designer, to join the ranks of several other Googleplex veterans, including, of course, co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone.

There are lots of reasons to leave a big company for a scrappy start-up, but just to spell out one obvious one: If you’re into risk, there is a whole lot more upside at Twitter these days.

The company’s last funding round pegged its value at $240 million, and if it ends up being acquired in the next few years, that number could be much higher. But Google shares stalled long before last fall’s stock market collapse (click chart to enlarge):

[Image credit: Doc Searls]

This should be a good place to gauge the state of the industry, but it’s also a dizzying one: There are a couple hundred booths and dozens of panels to navigate. So MediaMemo asked an ad:tech veteran for a guide: Mike Lazerow, whose Buddy Media specializes in getting big brands to advertise on social networks like Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace.

Lazerow’s first suggestion was to catch CNN president Jon Klein’s keynote this morning. But voting lines nixed that idea (suggestion for next time–Brooklyn district 91 needs more voting machines). Other highlights from Lazerow’s itinerary:

Another must-see keynote is the ‘state of the industry’ on Tuesday, moderated by Internet Advertising Bureau chief Randall Rothenberg. I usually stay away from any panel featuring five people with giant titles on the same stage together. But Randall is an uber-sharp strategist and thought-leader and promises to lead a compelling panel discussion that aims to cut through the noise of the digital marketing world.

… By far the most compelling Data panel is Wednesday’s ‘The Future of Measurement–How Do We Define the New Media Currency?’ David Hallerman, a senior analyst at eMarketer, hosts leaders of the major metrics firms, Nielsen Online, Hitwise, comScore, Quantcast and Microsoft’s Analytics and Atlas Institute. The focus of the panel will be how to create universal metrics to gauge the success and determine the pricing of all digital media that Google doesn’t hold a claim to. I encourage the panelists to grab a drink with each other afterward to move closer to common metrics. …

The ad network panel that will be most interesting is Thursday’s late-afternoon session ‘So Many Networks, So Little Time: Analyzing the Digital Network Landscape,’ hosted by David Joseph, head of the interactive entertainment research group at Morgan Stanley.

The real title of the panel should be ‘Online Ad Networks: Why There Are Too Many and Why They Will Be Out of Business Soon.’ While the world wants another ad network as much as I want my third heart surgery, these buy-siders will help sift through the confusion of the already over-crowded ad network space.

… For the most part, avoid all panels that have ‘innovation,’ ‘synergy’ and ‘dispatches from’ in the title. Stick with panels featuring companies that HAVE money (agencies, brands) and not companies that are selling solutions (startups, vendors and the major ad networks and sites). What matters is what the brands and agencies are buying, not what we want to sell them!”

And yes, Lazerow is on a panel himself: “Mobilizing and Leveraging Consumer Insights: Best Practices for the Digital and Social Media Age” kicks off at 2:45 p.m., and he assures me the discussion will be more interesting than the name. See you there.

The details, from MusicWeek (via Coolfer): You give the company 100 British pounds, and for the next year you can download all the music you want. And because you’re downloading the files in the unencrypted MP3 format, they are yours to keep, and yours to do whatever you want with: Play them on any Apple (AAPL) iPod or iPhone, make copies, burn them to CDs, etc.

Are there catches? Of course: The offer is only available to U.K. residents, who have to use a special USB dongle to make the Datz software work, and it only works on PCs running Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows, for now. Most crucially, the company only has music from two of the big four music labels–EMI and Warner Music Group (WMG)–and it doesn’t even have all of those companies’ new releases, but a “wide selection of new music released in 2009.”

But play along, for just a minute. Say Datz does end up striking deals with Sony (SNE) and Universal Music Group (and the other big indies), and does end up getting most of the majors’ catalogs. And say Datz is still able to keep the price point about the same: Something in the $15 a month range for unlimited music to own. Could that work, from both a consumer and industry perspective?

Yes. It could.

That’s around the same price point as music subscription services offered by RealNetworks’ (RNWK) Rhapsody and Napster’s (NAPS)/Best Buy’s (BBY) Napster.com. The big difference: Those services only give you access to music, not ownership. And while I’m not hung up on owning music as long as I can get what I want when I want, I’m in the minority on this one.

But if you could hang on to your music–and not have to worry about what format you’re using, since MP3s will work on all formats–then that seems like a compelling offer. The thought of shelling out $162 in advance will likely give people pause, but presumably Datz could figure out a way to extract the payments, à la the mobile carriers, over a one-year period.

Meanwhile, $162 a year is much, much more than most people were ever spending on CDs, even during the format’s boom years. And those, obviously, are long gone. Today the industry would be pleased if the average consumer spent $20 a year on music, no matter what format it’s in.

And yes, we know what many of you are going to say: Why pay for music at all when I can steal whatever I want? Or the faux-sophisticated alternate version: Music should be free! Because it can be replicated for no marginal cost!

Well, can’t argue with that–unless you’re in favor of compensating people who create intellectual property for their work. And I’m one of those old-fashioned types who still thinks that’s a good idea. Hope Datz can pull this off.