Justin D. Gawronski, a 17-year old student from Seattle, needs to work on his homework badly. And Amazon just made it a lot harder for him. You see, he downloaded an e-book and put it on his Kindle. And when Amazon went on its super-secret deletion spree of e-books, well, his homework went kaput.
Gawronski took copious notes using the Kindle that were linked to particular passages in the book, the court document says, and while those notes are still accessible, they are useless without the passages they reference.
Amazon has apologized for remotely deleting copies of 1984 and another Orwell novel, Animal Farm, in mid-July without informing customers.
Jay Edelson, the lead attorney in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the plaintiffs “appreciate Amazon.com’s new-found contrition, but words are not enough. Amazon.com had no more right to hack into people’s Kindles than its customers have the right to hack into Amazon’s bank account to recover a mistaken overpayment.
Seriously, Amazon. Stop doing that. Okay, I’m not really applauding the fact that a kid’s clogging up the legal system for his homework, but I’ve wanted to get a Kindle for the longest time and now I’m just pissed off at you guys for even putting in that backdoor.