Norway's Consumer Council has published objections to Amazon's
e-book reader Kindle and the close ties it has with Amazon's online
book shop. It says that the device and retailer are breaking
Norway's consumer protection laws.
A statement from the Consumer Council, or Forbrukerrådet, said
that there was an "excessive bond" between the Kindle and the
content bought for display on it. It said that the situation
appeared to be similar to that of Apple's iPods and iTunes
content.
It said that buyers of a Kindle have to agree to terms and
conditions which give Amazon the right to end the agreement at any
time without notice or the customer's agreement.
"This can hardly be understood in any way other than that you,
the customer, will no longer have access to the books or journals
you have purchased if you are suspected of having breached the
agreement, e.g. by make an illegal copy," said the Consumer
Council's director Hans Marius Graasvold, in an automatic
translation of a statement.
Amazon's control over content bought and downloaded onto a
Kindle device was demonstrated earlier this year when it forcibly
recalled copies of George Orwell's dystopian fantasy 1984. That
parable about an all-powerful authority controlling people's lives
was sold without the correct legal rights so was deleted remotely
from users' machines.
The Forbrukerrådet said that Amazon's contract would not be
legal under Norwegian contract law because it contains a clause
allowing the company to change the agreement without customer
notification or consent.
"This breaks with a fundamental principle in both Norwegian and
European contract law that contracts shall be adhered to, and that
the parties can not unilaterally have the power to change the
agreement, "said Graasvold.
Graasvold said that the Forbrukerrådet was poised to take
action, just as it did against Apple over the iPods' tie-ins to the
iTunes shop.
"We are currently waiting to see how Amazon and Norwegian
publishers will resolve this, but we do not rule out an 'iTunes 2'
if we are not satisfied on these points," said Graasvold.
In 2006 the Forbrukerrådet complained that iTunes broke consumer
protection law in Norway because it did not allow iTunes-bought
tracks to be played on non-Apple devices.
The country's Consumer Ombudsman agreed, telling Apple to open
up its system or abandon it. Apple later stopped using the system
and now sells music without the DRM protection that restricted the
use of the purchased material.
The Forbrukerrådet also expressed concerns about the privacy
implications of Amazon's storage of details of how Kindles were
used, and about the degree to which its agreements were even
understandable by Norwegian consumers.
Amazon's terms and conditions for the Kindle say that it can be
used to view content that is "determined by Amazon from time to
time". It says that content is licensed from Amazon, can only be
used on the Kindle and cannot be transferred to other devices.
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