dieseltaylor Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Looking forward to a society of electronic devices and DRM? I'm not so I don't use anything that is DRM'd Outlawed by Amazon DRM 22.10.12 • 158 kommentarer Hei og velkommen! Visste du at du kan abonnere på mine artikler? Les mer... A couple of days a go, my friend Linn sent me an e-mail, being very frustrated: Amazon just closed her account and wiped her Kindle. Without notice. Without explanation. This is DRM at it’s worst. Linn travels a lot and therefore has, or should I say had, a lot of books on her Kindle, purchased from Amazon. Suddenly, her Kindle was wiped and her account was closed. Being convinced that something wrong had happened, she sent an e-mail to Amazon, asking for help. This was the answer: Dear Linn [last name], My name is Michael Murphy and I represent Executive Customer Relations within Amazon.co.uk. One of our mandates is to address the most acute account and order problems, and in this capacity your account and orders have been brought to my attention. We have found your account is directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies. As such, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed and any open orders have been cancelled. Per our Conditions of Use which state in part: Amazon.co.uk and its affiliates reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts, remove or edit content, or cancel orders at their sole discretion. Please know that any attempt to open a new account will meet with the same action. You may direct any questions to me at resolution-uk@amazon.co.uk. Thank you for your attention to this email. Regards Michael Murphy Executive Customer Relations Amazon.co.uk This answer was very confusing. Which account was he talking about? She had never had any other accounts at Amazon. So, she replied to Murphy’s e-mail: Dear Michael Murphy, I am very surprised to read your email. What do you mean by “directly related to another which has been previously closed for abuse of our policies”. I can only remember ever having this one account, and I use it quite regularly to buy books for my Kindle, as you probably can see by my purchase history. How can there suddenly be a problem now? I use amazon.com and not co.uk for my Kindle, does that make any difference? I sincerely hope you can help me solve this matter, because I would very much like to have my account reopened. And please let me know if there is any action I can take to help. Best regards, Linn [last name] [Linn's phone number] The answer provided no progress: Dear Linn [last name], As previously advised, your Amazon.co.uk account has been closed, as it has come to our attention that this account is related to a previously blocked account. While we are unable to provide detailed information on how we link related accounts, please know that we have reviewed your account on the basis of the information provided and regret to inform you that it will not be reopened. Please understand that the closure of an account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well. Thank you for your understanding with our decision. I appreciate this is not the outcome you hoped for and apologise for any disappointment this may cause. Regards, Michael Murphy Executive Customer Relations Amazon.co.uk Not getting an answer to why the account was closed, she sent another e-mail: Dear Michael Murphy, Is it correct that you cannot give me any information about 1. How my account is linked to the blocked account 2. The name/id of the related blocked account 3. What policy that was violated I have no knowledge about any other account that could be related to mine, and cannot understand how I could have violated your policies in any way. Br, Linn [last name] Unfortunately, the answer was the same: Dear Linn [last name], We regret that we have not been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. Unfortunately, we will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters. We wish you luck in locating a retailer better able to meet your needs and will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters. Thank you for your attention to this email. Regards Michael Murphy Executive Customer Relations Amazon.co.uk Did she violate any terms? Amazon will not tell. Perhaps by accident? Amazon does not care. The conclusion so far is clear: Amazon closed her account, wiped her Kindle and refuses to tell her why. End of discussion. The worst of DRM As a long-term writer about technology, DRM, privacy and user rights, this Amazon example shows the very worst of DRM. If the retailer, in this case Amazon, thinks you’re a crook, they will throw you out and take away everything that you bought. And if you disagree, you’re totally outlawed. Not only is your account closed, all your books that you paid for are gone. With DRM, you don’t buy and own books, you merely rent them for as long as the retailer finds it convenient. Now what? Linn lives in Norway, far away from Amazon’s jurisdiction. How will she ever find the means to get her books back? By suing a large corporation half-way round the earth? Linn is outlawed by Amazon. http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger33 Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Only getting one side of the story here. Amazon may be at fault, or they may totally justified in their actions. Still, it is worrying to think of how little control we have over our purchases from digital sources like Steam and Amazon, etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 Your right that we only have one side of the story but its not as though Amazon have a no capacity to respond. On a legal point it would appear Amazon.co.uk. can disable books bought through Amazon.com which might argue they are the same company. However Amazon UK appears to be separate and most orders seem to go to Luxembourg to evade paying tax in the UK and the US. Interesting. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.ca/2012/10/et-tu-amazon.html And now they censor reviews. I have done a few book reviews on Amazon and I would be very upset to be accused and banned. It seems to me that Amazon is unprepared to invest in people who can think and simply uses computers to generate a "suspicion of" list and then acts on it. Perhaps it should realise that selling involves people and you need a certain amount of intelligent humans with powers to provide an interface for your customers. Something it could/should have learned from telephone companies. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 "To err is human; to really screw up, you need a computer." Or as a printed card I used to carry in my wallet put it: "The system does not work." We have become reliant on machines in the headlong search for efficiency. That is probably inevitable. The thing is, when machines go wrong, as inevitably they will sooner or later, they can really screw up big time. And then some poor bloody stiff has to go down into the sewer to straighten things out. But maybe he doesn't feel like it today, so it never gets straightened out. I could tell you stories... Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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