Amazon apologises for deleting Kindle books

Jeff Bezos has apologised personally for Amazon's behaviour

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

Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon, apologised in a posting on the Kindle Community forum for the deletion of two books, George Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, explaining that the company will be changing its policy in the future.

"This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four 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 remotely from the Kindle readers provoked a storm of outrage among users. Some compared it to a bookshop owner breaking into a customer's house and stealing back the books it had sold to them.

However, the apology failed to state that Amazon would not do the same thing again in similar circumstances, an omission that has worried John Sullivan of the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

"Amazon has been a positive example for [FSF campaign group] DefectiveByDesign to point to in the world of digital rights management-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 e-books, so that Kindle users can be confident that they won't be swindled again."