Amazon apologises for deleting Kindle books

The head of Amazon has issued a frank apology to users after the company erased books on Kindle readers without telling customers.

In a posting on the company's forum pages Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon, apologised for the deletion of two books, George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’. He said the company would be changing its policy in the future.

“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle,” he wrote.

“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.”

Amazon’s decision to withdraw the books and delete them from the Kindle readers provoked a storm of outrage among users. Some compared tit to a bookshop breaking into your house and stealing back books it had sold to you.

However, the apology didn't state that Amazon would not do the same thing again in similar circumstances. This worries John Sullivan of the Free Software Foundation.

"Amazon has been a positive example for Defective By Design to point to in the world of DRM-free music," he said.

We hope that this controversy will show Amazon that they need to take the same enlightened approach when it comes to ebooks, so Kindle users can be confident that they won't be Swindled again."