Amazon Pays $150K to Settle Suit Over Kindle E-book Deletions

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 5, 2009 - 9:56am.

Seattle - Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) has paid $150,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by two Kindle e-book reader device owners over the company's remote deletion of their copies of George Orwell's "1984."

One of the plaintiffs was a high school student who claimed that, along with the copy of "1984," all of his annotations done for coursework had also been wiped out when Amazon deleted the book from his Kindle.

Amazon stated at the time that it remotely deleted the e-books because a third-party distributor had not been properly authorized to sell them.

The company previously offered to replace the deleted e-book on purchasers' Kindles, or provide a $30 gift certificate.

The $150,000 settlement will be paid to plaintiffs' lawyers, but are earmarked to be donated to "a charitable organization that promotes children's issues, secondary or post- secondary education, health or job placement."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/scg54 (Reuters)

http://snipurl.com/scg2b (Ars Technica)

http://snipurl.com/rlx68 (DMW previous coverage)