By Bob Gaydos
  
 “… I shall send you a copy of the book ” — even O’Brien, Winston noticed, seemed to pronounce the words as though they were in italics — “Goldstein’s book, you understand, as soon as possible. It may be some days before I can get hold of one. There are not many in existence, as you can imagine. The Thought Police hunts them down and destroys them almost as fast as we can produce them. It makes very little difference. The book is indestructible. If the last copy were gone, we could reproduce it almost word for word.”
 
 Imagine if George Orwell had imagined the delete button.
 
 In unassailable proof that Whoever or Whatever Controls This Universe has a keen sense of humor, Orwell’s classic novel “1984,” from which the above quote comes, has become the book and Amazon.com Big Brother’s Thought Police. In about as dumb and heavy-handed a bit of customer service (in Doublespeak, of course, it means the opposite), the internet giant recently deleted thousands of copies of  “1984,” as well as Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” from clients’ Kindles.
 
 Kindles, which also escaped Orwell’s imagination, are those handheld electronic devices that are supposed to replace paper books (and newspapers and magazines), putting all kinds of people out of work as readers upload whatever they want, whenever they want, for a fraction of the cost of the hard copy. Except, of course, if Amazon decides to delete it. With English teachers everywhere relishing the irony of the situation — an invisible, powerful purveyor of thoughts destroying all traces of a book about thought control from the files of unsuspecting consumers — the Kindle’s future has become much less certain. After all, the basic assumption of book lovers is that, if they bought a book, they own the book. Forever. To do what they wish with it.
 
 Of course, Amazon had already voided another rule by prohibiting the sharing of downloaded books. That ought to have been a strong argument against the Kindle, but the convenience of carrying around hundreds of books, bought on the cheap, was apparently enough to overcome resistance for many readers.
 
 But erasing books from what were thought to be private files? Isn’t that a crime? Shouldn’t it be? Can Barnes and Noble come in to my home and confiscate a hard copy of “1984”? Are you listening, Congress?
 
 The “1984” caper has generated a fair amount of commentary in the blogosphere, with defenders of Amazon pointing to the company’s belatedly given reason for the mass deletions. Amazon said the digital editions of “1984” and “Animal Farm” were added to the online Kindle store by a company that was not authorized to sell them. This company used the self-service function of the site. When Amazon discovered this, it said, it rescinded the orders, refunding buyers the 99 cents they paid for each book and deleting the books from those previously believed to be private files.
 
 Kindle owners did not know Amazon could erase stuff at will (heck, apparently no one did) and, despite the company’s claim to the contrary, the sales contract for the device does not appear to inform buyers of the remote delete option. Most customers were upset to learn this, with students whose Orwell files also contained notes on the books being especially angry.
 
 While belatedly admitting the deletions were a bad idea, Amazon did not say it would never do this again. What it did say was, “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances.”
 
 A bit vague, no? How about in any circumstances? Will newspaper or magazine articles disappear if they contain an error of fact discovered later? How about a bit of conjecture that turns out to be false or something eventually adjudged libelous? Can Amazon hope to retain the power to unring the bell? Not in any brave new world in which I live.
 
 I’m not interested in any of the techno jargon arguments excusing Amazon’s actions because it did not foresee its machines doing things Amazon geniuses did not anticipate. That’s stuff for Isaac Asimov. Even allowing that Amazon was concerned that it was infringing on U.S. copyright law by allowing the sale of the books, that still doesn’t mean it had to delete the copies of all the people who thought they had bought the digital books legally. The real problems are that its web site was set up poorly, allowing unauthorized sales to occur and then automatically deleting all evidence of those sales, including the books themselves, once they were discovered and the delete button pushed. The problem was Amazon’s not its customers’.
 
 Even more to the point, until and unless Amazon forswears any right, intent or ability to delete content from customers’ Kindles — to remove books from electronic bookshelves — the company can have no credibility among serious readers who look upon their books as, well, their books, digital or otherwise. As Orwell wrote — “indestructible.”

 We will not unremember this.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange,com.

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