Consumerist
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drm
Amazon Tries To Clarify Download Limits For Kindle Books, Doesn't Quite Succeed
Dan, the Kindle owner who last week found that some of the books he'd purchased were no longer available to download due to unspecified limitations set by the publisher, spoke to more Amazon reps on Sunday. They clarified the DRM policy. Well, sort of. More »
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drm
Amazon Kindle Books Can Only Be Downloaded A Limited Number Of Times, And No You Cannot Find Out That Limit Before You Hit It
An Amazon Kindle customer discovered last week that every time he bought a book through the Amazon Kindle store, he was agreeing to a special, invisible restriction that's supposedly buried in the fine print that he agreed to when he first registered his account:
[The CSR said] that there is always a limit to the number of times you can download a given book. Sometimes, he said, it's five or six times but at other times it may only be once or twice. And, here's the kicker folks, once you reach the cap you need to repurchase the book if you want to download it again.
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amazon
No More Amazon Referrals For North Carolina Residents
This morning, Amazon e-mailed all North Carolina residents who are part of its Associates program to notify them that their accounts will be terminated in the next few weeks. More » -
amazon
Amazon Releases June '09 Coupon Codes
Amazon.com has released the latest batch of special coupon codes and Probargainhunter has the roundup. This month, they seem to all be for groceries. More » -
cheap music
Sony Adding All Songs Over Two Years Old To EMusic; EMusic Raising Prices
Although eMusic is a great service—for a flat monthly fee, you get a set number of downloads per month of DRM-free music tracks—it's about to get better. Or maybe worse, depending on the breadth of your musical tastes. Today eMusic will announce that Sony is adding its back catalog of songs to eMusic's library. The bad news is that eMusic also plans to slightly raise prices and/or drop the number of downloads per month. Even if it works out to between 50-60 cents per track, though, that's still far less than iTunes Music Store or Amazon, and probably the cheapest way to grab music from Sony artists without resorting to piracy. More » -
shipping and handling
Amazon Merchant May Want To Reconsider Their Two-Day Shipping Charges
Brent was ready to order two-day shipping from Amazon merchant Electronics Expo for a set of Boston Acoustics speakers until he realized it would cost an extra $186. The speakers were only $49, and standard shipping was available for $14.99. More » -
If you own a Kindle, you can now access your notes and highlights via the web at kindle.amazon.com. [TechCrunch]
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stupid shipping gang
Continuing Adventures Of The Stupid Shipping Gang
Today's "Toothpaste For Dinner" Web comic features a visit from the Stupid Shipping Gang. A bigger version of the comic, and more adventures of the Stupid Shipping Gang, inside. More » -
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movies
Soderbergh Subverts The Theater Experience Again
One of the hotter indie flicks of the summer, Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, debuted on Amazon's rental service this week, way before the movie opens in theaters May 22. At $9.99 for a three-day rental, the movie is also cheaper to rent than it will be to see at many theaters. More » -
shiny objects
$220,000 Diamond Ring Gets Rave Reviews On Amazon, Sort Of
We're no fans of fake customer reviews here at Consumerist, it's true, but obviously goofy reviews are one of my very favorite things. (The reviews for this gallon of milk are an Internet classic.)
Reader Rob sent us a link to a $220,000 diamond ring for sale on Amazon...marked down from only $338,800. Bargain! More »
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astroturfing
UPDATE: Amazon Contacts Reader About Pay-to-Play Reviews, Promises Changes
Previously: Amazon Deletes Reviews That Mention Pay For Play Review Schemes
Reader Bob, who contacted us about the manufacturer/third-party vendor bribing Amazon.com customers with free anti-snoring mouthpieces for five-star reviews and removing any reviews mentioning the free merchandise offer, heard back from Amazon's executive customer relations department. His e-mail after the jump. More »
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amazon
Amazon Deletes Reviews That Mention Pay For Play Review Schemes
After buying an anti-snoring mouthpiece from a third-party seller on Amazon, reader Bob received an email from the company offering him a free mouthpiece in exchange for a five-star review. He noted this attempted bribe in his Amazon review, and Amazon deleted it. Twice.
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drm
Amazon Can Ban You From Your Kindle Account Whenever It Likes
Amazon recently banned a customer for making what they considered too many returns, and when they did this they also disabled his Kindle account, although the returns were never related to Kindle purchases. So what happens when your Kindle account is taken away? Your Kindle still works, and the books you already bought for it will work, but you can't download those books ever again (better have made a backup on your PC!), you can't receive your magazine, blog, or newspaper subscriptions on it anymore, you can't email documents to Amazon to have them converted and sent to your Kindle, and you can't buy any new books for the device. That $360 device only works so long as Amazon decides it will work. More » -
Amazonfail
Amazon Apologizes For "Ham-Fisted" Catalog Error
Was it a hacker? Probably not. Was it a translation error? Who knows. Here's the official #Amazonfail apology email (again) for your reading pleasure. It is, apparently, the final word on the matter. More » -
Amazonfail
Former Employee Says AmazonFail Caused By The French (Well, By One Of Them At Least)
Mike Daisey, the monologist and former employee at Amazon.com, told the Seattle PI that the weekend's gay and feminist book fiasco was actually caused by an employee at Amazon.fr who confused the term "adult"—which refers to porn stuff in Amazon's system—with "erotic" and "sexuality." That sharp-toothed troll who claimed all the credit is going to be pretty miffed to find out about this. More » -
amazon
Amazon Gay Book Removal Was Massive Prank, I Did It, Claims Troll
UPDATE: Former Employee Says AmazonFail Caused By The French (Well, By One Of Them At Least)
An online miscreant named Weev is taking credit for this weekend's fiasco where reams of GLBT books were removed from Amazon sales ranking, sparking a massive online riot. Weev, pictured, says he organized an army of off-shore computer users to make a bunch of fake Amazon accounts and flag all the gay and lesbian books they could as inappropriate. Also, he got several friends with high-trafficked websites to embed an iframe code that made their visitors automatically send the flags without their knowledge. If true, this recent post by a formerly profligate troller provides insight. However, no one can verify Wee's claims as Amazon appears to have deactivated all the ways he used to ply his prank. It's hard to trust a professional liar like Weev, even the idea's plausibility doesn't speak well for Amazon.This is how he said he did it: More »
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amazon
Amazon Introduces Packaging Feedback
Is Amazon trying to kill off our "stupid shipping gang" tag? Alex wrote to us today to point out that now there's a new "Packaging Feedback" link under your "My Account" page on their site. Among other things, you can leave feedback on the size of the box relative to what's inside. More »
amazon
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Sat Jul 4
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