Amazon.com along with other online retailers may be required to collect sales tax in New York State if a proposal by Governor Eliot Spitzer is adopted. Amazon is opposed to such a plan.Residents currently are on an honor system when it comes to reporting Internet purchases and paying taxes on those items. Online retailers with a brick-and-mortar presence in the state are required to collect sales tax at the time of the transaction.
Amazon Tries to Strong-Arm Kindle-Related Sites
Jason Schramm registered the domain KindleReport.com a while ago to report on Amazon’s ebook, the Kindle*.
Amazon Receives Patent On (Slightly Special) Error Pages
Amazon.com is a decent place to shop for books, CDs, or whatever else you like. It’s also a good site to read reviews, even if you do your buying elsewhere. But the company has once again embarrassed itself by receiving an obvious patent.
Amazon Taking On French Law
Online retailer Amazon.com will pay 1,000 euros ($1,500) a day in fines in order to offer free shipping in France while it appeals a December court ruling that made the practice illegal.
Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon, sent an email to customers of its French Web site stating Amazon will continue to offer free shipping while waiting for the outcome of the appeal.
Amazon Gets Sony BMG Tracks
UPDATED: The entire Sony BMG catalog will be available on Amazon MP3 beginning later this month. Sony BMG is the last major label to drop DRM
Sony BMG, DRM Free, Heads To Amazon
The glaringly missing online component to Sony BMG’s plan to sell music without DRM turned out to be a newly revealed deal with Amazon.com.
Amazon & Toys”R” Us Involved in Behavioral Targeting?
Just before holidays a colleague of mine asked me if Amazon and Toys"R" Us were involved in behavioral targeting. He told me that he did a search for Lego on ToysRUs and a few days later when he visited Amazon, he saw Lego featured on the home page. He said that he had never did any search for Lego on Amazon.I looked at the code on ToysRUs and did not find anything that looked like it is sharing data with Amazon.
Amazon Kindle’s Extra Features Discovered
When the Amazon Kindle first came out, we kind of laughed at it; limited by battery life and with a $400 price tag, it allowed you do nothing more than read separately purchased books. Now, we’re still not ready to embrace the thing, but it turns out that the Kindle is a little better than most people previously believed.
Amazon Buys Extremely Rare J.K. Rowling Book
J.K. Rowling created seven handwritten, leather-bound copies of a book called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Six were given to close friends, and the last was sold to Amazon.com for about $4 million.
Amazon.fr’s Free Shipping Condemned
Free shipping is so nice – you know what you’re getting into from the start, with no surprises at the final checkout screen. The French may see some last-minute additions to their book orders, however, as a court has ruled that Amazon.fr must charge for deliveries.