TechFlash: Seattle's Technology News

Is ecommerce giant Amazon.com making plans for a new refund feature? In a filing this month, Amazon is seeking to trademark the term "Unpay" under the category of "Financial services; credit card services; debit card services; charge card services; clearing and reconciling financial transactions via a global computer network."

Amazon previously had an Unpay feature but I can't find any recent mention of it. The last reference I can find is in a 2001 press release about the now-defunct Amazon Honor System for donating money to websites: "Customers can also take advantage of a full and unconditional money-back guarantee up to 30 days after payment by using Amazon.com's innovative Unpay feature, which provides no-questions-asked refunds."

Today's your last chance to sign up for the first TechFlash Live event of 2010, taking place Tuesday March 23 at the Showbox Sodo. We've got a fantastic panel on hand to discuss how to make money online and the future of advertising. If that's not enough to whet your appetite, we're also rolling in some ping pong tables so folks can warm-up, scout the competition and challenge your tech rivals in advance of the big TechFlash pong tourney later this summer.

Registration will close later this afternoon. So if you haven't signed up yet, now is the time to pull the trigger. Tickets here.

2201 Westlake, Photo via Vulcan Real Estate/ Benjamin Benschneider

Earlier this year we reported that Amazon.com was on the hunt for additional office space in Seattle, and had signed a letter of intent with Paul Allen's Vulcan for the new 2201 Westlake complex in South Lake Union. Now Vulcan is making it official. The developer is announcing that Amazon has leased 180,000 square feet of office space at 2201 Westlake and expects to begin moving into the building in mid-2010

That's in addition to Amazon's new 1.7 million square foot headquarters campus now under construction by Vulcan in South Lake Union. Amazon's growing footprint in the neighborhood reflects its continuing growth during the recession.

Amazon.com continues to extend its Kindle ecosystem to other devices. The company just announced a new free Kindle application for Mac computers, allowing Mac users to browse, buy and read Kindle electronic books. Amazon already offers Kindle apps for the iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, and Windows PCs (and promises one for Apple's new iPad too).

Meantime, the New York Times reports Amazon is playing more hardball with publishers in negotiations over electronic books. The online retail giant is threatening to stop selling books by publishers "unless they agree to a detailed list of concessions regarding the sale of electronic books" including that "that they lock into three-year contracts and guarantee that no other competitor will get lower prices or better terms," the Times reports.

John Doerr

Prominent venture capitalist John Doerr is stepping down from board of Amazon.com, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Doerr, a general partner at Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has been an Amazon director since June 1996. Doerr informed Amazon on March 12 that he would not stand for re-election to the board at the company's 2010 shareholder meeting. No reason was given for Doerr's decision.

Doerr is also on the board of search giant Google and fuel cell maker Bloom Energy, which has been making a lot of news lately. Doerr has been a general partner at Kleiner Perkins since 1980, and was an early investor in Amazon. He's backed other big tech names such as Intuit, Sun Microsystems and Netscape.

Amazon.com is engaged in game of whack-a-mole again, trying to beat down sales tax legislation popping up in various states. The latest skirmish is taking place in Connecticut, where lawmakers are considering a bill that — following a strategy pursued by other states — would make Amazon collect sales tax on purchases just like a physical retailer. But Amazon is warning it will take swift action to dodge the measure if it passes.

John Grisham

John Grisham, the author of numerous best-selling legal thrillers, has been a vocal skeptic of electronic books, saying they pose a threat to publishers, bookstores and aspiring authors. But Grisham has apparently had a change of heart. Random House announced today that 23 of Grisham's backlist titles — from "The Firm" to "Ford County" — will now be available in digital form.

Amazon.com wasted no time cranking up its marketing machine. The online retailer immediately started touting Grisham e-books for its Kindle reader.

From Amazon.com

Amazon.com early on made a habit of pricing digital versions of new release books at $9.99, well below hardcover list price. That irked publishers, who thought the $9.99 standard would devalue books in the minds of consumers. Now, with Apple offering publishers the ability to set higher price points (up to $14.99) on e-books, Amazon is being forced to accept such terms as well.

Now some publishers are betting that consumers will spend even more for so-called "enriched" e-books, equipped with special features. Case in point: David Baldacci's new novel, "Deliver Us From Evil," which will be available in "enriched" digital form for $15.99.

Google's tussle with the Chinese government over censorship rules has shined a spotlight on other large U.S. technology companies doing business in China, including Amazon.com. Ahead of a hearing on global internet freedom earlier this month, Sen. Dick Durbin asked the nation's biggest tech firms to detail their China business operations and explain their "future plans for protecting human rights, including freedom of expression and privacy, in China." Amazon's response to Durbin contains some interesting information about its physical facilities in China, but the ecommerce giant sidestepped any serious discussion of censorship issues.

Some U.S. universities are doing pilots with Kindle readers, testing them as a replacement for printouts and textbooks in the classroom. Now a non-profit organization is taking Kindle pilots global, looking to get the Amazon device "into the hands and minds of people in the developing world" to promote education and literacy. Kind of like One Laptop Per Child, but with Kindles.

The non-profit, Worldreader.org, has a strong Amazon connection. One of its co-founders is David Risher, a former Amazon senior vice president of product and platform development (and a Microsoft veteran). According to the Worldreader.org website, the organization is conducting the "world's first-ever e-reader test" in the West African nation of Ghana starting Monday.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

It's been more than four months since Amazon.com completed its acquisition of online shoe retailer Zappos.com in a $1 billion-plus deal. Now Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh — who continues to run his company under new owner Amazon — is talking about Zappos' strategy going forward, including its expansion into new product categories. Hsieh says Amazon is taking a hands-off approach to Zappos, letting the quirky retailer do its own thing, but also reveals how life is changing under Amazon.

TechFlash is pleased to welcome BDO, an accounting, tax and valuation firm with deep roots and expertise in the technology industry, as an annual sponsor. We appreciate BDO’s decision to support our mission of informing and bringing together the Seattle region’s technology community. Sponsors make TechFlash possible, and we hope you’ll join us in thanking BDO for its support.

Through the annual sponsorship, BDO will engage with the technology community in a variety of ways -- including sponsor messages on the site and in the daily TechFlash email newsletter. The BDO brand will become a familiar sight to TechFlash readers. The firm’s leaders will also be active participants in TechFlash events, including the upcoming March 23 TechFlash Live at the Showbox Sodo. (Maybe they'll even join us in the official sport of TechFlash, ping-pong.)

Drugstore CEO Dawn Lepore

Drugstore.com is in shopping mode. The Bellevue-based company, which just acquired Salu, operator of the skinstore.com website for skin creams and cosmetics, is planning more acquisitions, according to CEO Dawn Lepore. Lepore told Bloomberg BusinessWeek the company is looking for other businesses in its core product areas of vitamins, vision and beauty products — specifically deals in the $40 million to $60 million range.

“I want to take over businesses that are in our sweet spots,” Lepore said. "Acquisitions should be an ongoing part of our strategy.”

Amazon.com hasn't explained the weekend glitch that resulted in deep discounts on many graphic novels and sparked a brief buying frenzy. Now Publishers Weekly reports Amazon has removed the buy button on graphic novels from Marvel, Dark Horse, IDW and other publishers distributed by a company called Diamond Comic Distributors. The report says the removal of the buy buttons is "apparently an effort to correct the glitch that caused the wild discounting of graphic novels."

Separately, Bleeding Cool, which has been tracking the Amazon episode, says some surprising graphic novel discounts are now popping up on the Barnes & Noble website.

Amazon.com's plans for a warehouse in Canada have stirred a lively debate up north, with the Canadian Booksellers Association warning that Amazon's presence "will detrimentally affect independent businesses and would raise serious concerns over the protection of our cultural industries."

Now an Amazon executive is firing back, calling such claims "preposterous." Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, told The Globe & Mail that Amazon has spent "tens of thousands of dollars" supporting Canadian culture since launching the Canadian version of its website in 2002.