Amazon Kindle users surprised by 'Big Brother' move

Owners of Amazon's Kindle electronic book reader have received a nasty surprise, after discovering that copies of books by George Orwell had been deleted from their gadgets without their knowledge. The books - downloaded from Amazon.com by American Kindle users - were remotely deleted after what the US company now says was a rights issue regarding the publisher, MobileReference.com. "These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books," spokesman Drew Herdener told the Guardian. "When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers' devices, and refunded customers." Amazon refunded the cost of the books, but told affected customers they could no longer read the books and that the titles were "no longer available for purchase".