Apple Rejecting Books That Link to Amazon?

In the past few months, we have written extensively on how Apple has backstabbed publishers with some of the policies it has adopted for iOS apps. It seems Apple is not done making dubious decisions. According to Seth Godin, Apple has rejected his Stop Stealing Dreams work and won’t carry it for having multiple links to the Amazon store (in the bibliography section). Apple and Amazon are competitors in this market. But Apple’s current strategy can hardly be considered an open one.

I think that Amazon and Apple and B&N need to take a deep breath and make a decision on principle: what’s inside the book shouldn’t be of concern to a bookstore with a substantial choke on the marketplace. If it’s legal, they ought to let people read it if they choose to,

explained Seth Godin. Large book stores can’t get away with censoring books or links in this day and age without a good excuse. Linking to other stores from inside e-books is a very lousy excuse for not selling certain titles. These types of moves by Apple won’t stop people from finding a way around them. Apple has not made any comment on this issue. But this won’t go down too well with publishers hoping to work with Apple to bring their works to the market.