Bezos apologizes for removal of classic Orwell titles from Kindle

Amazon got a blast of bad PR last week after news broke that the company had removed George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" from the Kindle electronic book reader as part of a dust-up with a publisher. Now Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is making a personal apology, writing in a Kindle discussion board that the company was "stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles."

Here's the full text of the Bezos apology, posted Thursday just before Amazon's second-quarter earnings announcement:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com

Kind of reminds me of the apology Amazon made after the removal of sales rank for a number of gay- and lesbian-themed books earlier this year. The company called it a "ham-fisted error."

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About Eric Engleman

ERIC ENGLEMAN is senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, covering online retail giant Amazon.com. Engleman tracks Amazon's increasingly complex business, spanning ecommerce, Kindle, cloud computing, and more. He's been covering technology and other industries for the Business Journal since 2003.

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