Amazon's recent remote deletion of 1984 and Animal Farm struck a nerve. There was something so undeniably creepy about a company entering hundreds of virtual bookshelves in the middle of the night and deleting "1984" (of all books!).

But the real issue here isn't just remote deletion, it's DRM. As long as Amazon uses digital restrictions, they will continue to control what people can do with their ebooks--and that's unacceptable. Defective by Design has just launched a petition to demand that Amazon drop DRM and insist that until they do, the 'Swindle' (our name for the 'Kindle') remains a threat to the free exchange of ideas.