Almost a year ago, Amazon introduce its frustration free packaging. Now Amazon wants you to let them know how they’re doing, with the Amazon Packaging Feedback program, through which you can let Amazon know whether your order arrived in packaging that was too big, too small, or just right.

In a scene that seems straight out of, well, 1984, Amazon reached out across its WhisperNet network and removed all copies of Animal Farm and 1984 itself from every Kindle and Kindle 2 which had purchased and downloaded the books from Amazon. So high school student Justin Gawronski has sued them, claiming in his lawsuit that the loss of his copy of 1984 has cost him far more than the cost of the book, and includes the loss of all of the notes he’d taken and attached to the book on his Kindle, and the value of the effort in creating them.

It was a seemingly watershed moment in iTunes history. Earlier this year, Apple finally broke down and did away with their previously iron-clad pricing structure of .99 for any song in the iTunes catalog. Instead, they introduced their “iTunes Variable Pricing”, meaning that you might pay any of .66, .99, or $1.29 for a tune. But what makes this really interesting is that, in addition, now the entirety of Apple’s iTunes music catalog has lost the Apple-proprietary digital rights management (DRM) and is DRM-free, which is the + in “iTunes Plus”.

For at least a few people – and for at least a few moments – Amazon seems to be down today, as people are finding that they are unable to connect to Amazon. Efforts to reach the site have been met by moments of hanging while browsers were “connecting to Amazon,” followed by error messages.

It seems like only yesterday we were reporting that, due to California’s legislature (among others) being poised to pass a tax on affiliate programs (which some were also calling an “advertising tax”) such as those run by Amazon and Overstock, these and other companies were resorting to dumping the affiliates in those states and that, in fact, Overstock had just dumped all of their California affiliates for that very reason. In fact, it was yesterday. And in response, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the tax increase which the California legislators had passed, including the problematic affiliate tax provision.

With ever more states either passing or contemplating passing an Internet affiliate program sales tax, the two edges of that particular sword are being felt from coast-to-coast, as associates are being slashed from the lucrative affiliate programs of some of the largest Internet companies.

Following in New York’s footsteps, North Carolina is set to enact a similar Amazon Affiliate Tax, by which we mean that sales generated by someone in North Carolina via an affiliate program will be taxed (New York enacted an affiliate sales tax last year, over which New York was promptly sued).

Amazon has rolled out a new service that lets you read your books online as soon as you purchase them. Not only does Amazon’s new service let you read newly purchased books online, but you can also highlight, tag, and bookmark pages – and you can even print pages, and copy and paste text from the pages of your new book! All before you ever receive the actual hardcopy of the book – in fact, you can start reading it online instantly, as soon as you purchase it, using the Amazon Online Reader (which is really just an interface for your web browser).

The Espresso Book Machine (“EBM”) is a new variation of “print on demand” – an Internet-connected book vending machine which, by tapping into a vast online book catalog, can print – on the spot – your choice of a mind-boggling selection of two million titles, including currently in-copyright titles as well as those in the public domain, and out of print books! The Expresso Book Vending Machine is available from On Demand Books (ODB), and below we include a list of current Espresso Book Machine locations, so that you can see it in action.

Last week dozens of thousands of books quietly disappeared from Amazon’s listings and ranking system. What they all had in common was that they had either gay or ‘adult’ themes.

A New York court has upheld New York’s affiliate sales tax law, dubbed “The Amazon Tax”, which requires that sales tax be collected for all sales originating in New York pursuant to a commission agreement (such as an affiliate program), regardless of the fact that the merchant is not actually in New York – such as Amazon.

Amazon Remembers is a new iPhone application that lets you send a picture of anything to Amazon, and if it is at all available for sale within Amazon’s huge network of products, they will send you a link to purchase it within 24 hours.

While we often tout Amazon on these pages, today we’d like to direct your attention to a fabulous – but little known – Internet-based service provided by another bookstore: Barnes & Noble.

Amazon wants to brighten your holiday season by introducing “Frustration Free Packaging” to help reduce wrap rage – that frustration that consumers feel when trying to get at toys, electronics, and other products that are more secured in their plastic and wire confines than the gold at Ft. Knox. Frustration free packages will feature frustration free packing that is more consumer friendly, with more plain cardboard and fewer twist ties and plastic packages on which to cut yourself.

Guess what! The Internet Patrol is now available on the Amazon Kindle ebook reader! How cool is that?! Of course, you probably know that there are Kindle books (a Kindle book is a book which has been made available on the Kindle reader in ebook format), but did you know that there were Kindle blogs and other publications?