Thanks again to our friend Jorgen who returned to direct us to a couple of stories about the ongoing debate over Google Books’ attempt to rule the eBook World…
First the Wall Street Journal offers this ‘hard to believe’ author and consumer defense mounted by Amazon. (Honestly, Amazon, don’t you want to rule the eBook World too?) I seem to remember a $9.99 boycott of eBooks over there not all that long ago…yes, readers had to force you to lower your prices. And there was that time you deleted books from Kindles without even saying why. Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?
Find more specifics on Amazon’s argument at zdnet.com.
The second story at the Chronicle Review  examines how Google Books’ method of archiving books could get in the way with how researchers use texts. The article warns that pricing, access, and privacy aside, we should think long and hard before putting control of all this information into the hands of a corporation that could one day be swallowed up by Wal-Mart. That chilling thought and more in this in-depth piece.
