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Amazon CEO: Deleting Your Kindle Books Was “Stupid, Thoughtless”

from Mashable! by Pete Cashmore

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In response to Amazon’s controversial move last week to remove specific copies of George Orwell books from Kindles, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos apologized on the Kindle forums today, calling the decision “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles”.

The move resulted in a small backlash last week as Kindle owners found the books missing from their devices and a refund in their accounts: the publisher, it transpired, did not have the rights to sell the books and had added them to the store using the Kindle’s self-publishing platform. But buyers were surprised to learn Amazon could simply take back their books, and Amazon later vowed not to do it again.

Today, CEO Jeff Bezos extended the apology to members of the Kindle forum:

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

Indeed, in a video announcing Amazon’s acquisition of shoe retailer Zappos this week, Bezos highlighted the company’s customer-centric approach. Perhaps the shoe marketer, which has already mastered Twitter, can help Amazon deal with social media flare-ups in the future.