Amazon Tries to Strong-arm Kindle News Sites
by Jason Schramm in Announcements, News on February 7, 2008
Amazon is trying to scare sites with Kindle in their name who have placed Amazon Associates links or banners on their sites into giving up their domains. I received an email today telling me my Amazon Associate account will be canceled and I will forfeit any revenue from Q1 of 2008 (currently totaling around $45) if I do not contact them to transfer KindleReport.com to Amazon.
The message reads as follows:
Greetings from Amazon.com.
It has recently come to our attention that you are using a domain name in our Associates Program that contains a variation and/or misspelling of the name KINDLE, including but not limited to KINDLEREPORT.COM. Please note that we do not allow anyone with a URL containing the word “amazon,” any other trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates, any misspelling of the word “amazon” and/or numerical variants to participate in the Associate Program (see Section 1 of the Associates Program Operating Agreement at http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/agreement/). Such use violates Amazon.com’s trademark, proprietary and other rights.
At this juncture, we are willing to assume that you have registered and are using this domain name without a full appreciation of the above, provided that you are willing to assign this domain name over to Amazon.com. Please advise whether you agree to transfer ownership of the KINDLEREPORT.COM domain name to Amazon.com. If so, you will be contacted with further details.
If, however, we do not hear from you regarding the above within ten days from the date of this email, we will have no alternative but to terminate your associates account effective as of the date of this email and you will not receive payment for Q1 2008.
Please know that we value our relationship and we look forward to hearing from you. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Amazon.com Account Specialist
Associates Program
http://www.amazon.com
This has shut down other Kindle news sites in recent days (Kindlenews.info had to change its name), but I didn’t know why until now. I have contacted Amazon for comment but have yet to hear anything. I can tell you right now that I will be continuing to operate this site. I have created this site in good faith, promoting the Amazon brand. I have a slew of articles that I just need to finish up and post over the next few days and weeks. I also have a lot of ideas to improve the site.
I understand they need to protect their copyrights and trademarks, but there has to be another way. They risk losing a lot of goodwill from Amazon fans. They appear to be slowly working through Kindle news sites at least, so if they haven’t reached you yet they will soon.
“We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!”
quote from the movie Independence Day. I would provide a link for you to buy it on Amazon, but apparently I’m not allowed to.
And thanks to TeleRead for providing coverage that let me see what others were saying (source).
updated 7:30pm: I am adding a Google ad to the site in place of the Amazon Kindle banner. And I will continue to update this site with unique content and original news items.
Tags: Amazon, eBook Daily, News, the Kindle Report
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Good for you! Standing up to bullies is the right thing to do.
[…] says his Q1 2008 earnings thus far are about […]
This is exactly what I would expect Amazon to do. You can’t maintain a neutral blog/news site and still be on the payroll of the company that makes the product you are covering. That’s slimy on your end, and Amazon could get in a big PR mess by inadvertently endorsing your opinions by giving you money.
I am not on any body’s payroll, but I see your point at least with regards to this site. I never made money on the ad on this site (which I since took down). I have used their ad program for other sites to make it easy for people to buy whatever products were mentioned, or get a song mentioned legally.
Hi,
Do you allow cross posting?
I invite you to publish your stories also at http://www.huliq.com which will be broadcast in Google News and MSN News as well.
Thanks.
Yeah, that’s pretty messed up, man. This kind of stuff happens way too often–the overzealous legal teams at these companies get their panties in a bunch and kill all the best innovation and word of mouth buzz that’s happening around the company’s products. If companies like Amazon had a clue, their marketing guys would go and grab their lawyers by the ears, shake them around a little and tell them to get stop being stupid.
well, I was all ready to get pissed until I read the letter from amzn - apparently, you did not.
basically, you are breaking the terms of the associates agreement (you probably never read them) and trying to make money on your associate account by using an amazon trademark.
typical entitlement mentality that is so prevelent in this once-great country. They’re the bad guy for enforcing the rules you agreed to.
fight the power, indeed.
I would just like to point out that few companies have policies such as this. And when I originally signed up with their associates ad program it was for my other sites. Over the years I just kept adding sites, not having any issue. Apple would never think of doing such a thing. Apple doesn’t mind if you have their name in your URL, with their ads, as long as you don’t give away their secrets.
There is a post about this issue at the above link. I don’t think you will win this battle Jason.
I don’t plan on winning. I plan on continuing with this website as is, without Amazon ads. And if I ever decide the site would be more useful with the Amazon ads I can rename the site. ebookdaily.com has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
You agreed to the rules at Amazon and now you’re complaining because they actually expect you to follow them? What are you, 6 years old? Rules is rules; if you don’t like them, take your ball and go play someplace else.
same thing, to the gold and silver which is purchased with those college basketball myspace layouts coin somewhat more valuable than an equal quantity of gold in bullion. If, in the English coin, pkkqjxvgcf
[…] the controversy I mentioned earlier, I decided to rebrand The Kindle Report as eBook Daily. It will still have a […]
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Because of such publicity and strong arm tactics, we are opting to use Goodle Adsense rather than become an Amazon.com associate. Way to go Amazon!
Hello webmaster
I would like to share with you a link to your site
write me here preonrelt@mail.ru
I come to your website with the domain ebookdaily.com, and I agree very much you provide helpful information to Kindle lovers. So have you decided to transfer kindlereport.com to Amazon, and will they pay for it? And actually can they do anything legitimate to other domain for their trademark (including amazon, kindle)? I’m interested to know…
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
we go the letter of doom today.
a lawyer is threatening legal action unless we remove http://www.theamazonkindle.co.uk
Annoyingly I can imagine Amazon have had a few sales from this site!