Is Amazon Big Brother?

I know I am just about the last person on the planet to write anything on the Kindle-1984 controversy which has, momentarily, shifted the internet's focus off Michael Jackson. In fact, by the time I finish posting this, I'm sure everyone will be back to speculating about the King of Pop's untimely death. However, as a Kindle owner, Orwell reader, and prospective author, I do have thoughts on this topic.

I read 1984 in high school and subsequently made a video for our class in which I recited Hamlet's to-be-or-not-to-be soliloquy until the thought police, wearing silver ski jackets, abducted me to Room 101 (i.e. a dark basement) and threw white teddy bears at me until I confessed to...huh, that's the only part I don't remember. What did I confess? Anyway, because I have gotten together with my high school classmates several times since then and watched the video, I remember 1984 quite well. The story is about a totalitarian government state that monitors its citizens' every thought and move via the Thought Police. Just think Big Brother, since 1984 is the origin of the phrase.

Several days ago, Amazon removed copies of 1984 from Kindle, Amazon's e-reader, leaving only a cryptic message behind. In place of 1984, Kindle owners had a mysterious message that something had been removed from their archived items and that they would be refunded money for their purchase. For more information, Kindle owners scoured the internet to learn that copies of 1984 had been sold illegally, and consequently Amazon redacted the copies.

Although Amazon seems to be standing by its decision, Kindle owners are outraged. Orwell's 1984 is creepy enough without it being mysteriously removed from your Kindle with only a confusing note that some items (which will remain nameless) have been removed. The removal would have been outrageous enough, but the fact that the book removed was 1984 is just too ironic for words.

All Kindle owners are now wondering if the books they download to their Kindle are really theirs. After all, if I had ordered a paper copy of 1984 from Amazon, I doubt Jeff Bezos would be outside my house in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to get it off my bookshelf without triggering my alarm system. And if he was, well, I would just have to stop shopping at Amazon altogether. Here's the thing, Amazon: we either own the books or we don't. Either the books I downloaded to my Kindle are mine forever and ever or they aren't. Which is it, because it can't be both?

It's a new world we are living in, and I think this story is another reminder that, to some extent, you give up your privacy when you choose to go electronic. Putting 4,000 photos of your kids on Facebook is not the same as putting them in a photo album on your coffee table. Ads in a magazine, aimed at people who read magazines, are not the same as targeted Google ads. And books downloaded onto your Kindle are not the same as books bought at your local Barnes & Noble.