Text Search

Amazon.com Removes Page Printing from Text Search Feature

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 4, 2003 - 8:26am.
Seattle -- Online retail giant Amazon.com, which last month launched a feature that enables users to search the full texts of 120,000 books it offers, and print out several pages of the actual texts, has removed the latter feature after receiving complaints from groups including the Authors Guild, the Associated Press reported. While Amazon would not confirm the feature's removal, AP said that as of Friday surfers using the "Search Inside the Book" feature were no longer able to print out samples from books. Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken told AP that some of its 8,000 members were concerned that users may simply print out recipes and other reference materials instead of paying for the book. Amazon did say that 15 authors had requested that their works not be included in the list available titles for "Search Inside the Book."