Amazon’s new round of Kindle e-readers turned tablets were announced this week and news has quickly spread that some models will not be available for sale throughout the UK and EU.
The models that won’t be for sale are the Kindle Touch, new design and touchscreen, and the Kindle Fire – colour touchscreen, movies, TV, apps and more. Amazon has not currently released any statements on the topic, but from speculation we can report that some of the new features aren’t compatible with UK or EU law.
Amazon’s new web-browser, Silk, is currently incompatible with the EU’s privacy and data protection laws because of the way it works – by offloading some rendering to Amazon’s servers. This means it’s possibly violating regulations that prohibit private data from being routed to third parties. This theory originated from ZDNet.
There is no public record of Amazon submitting their devices for testing to the relevant boards, however, many other tablets have been cleared for entry into the market and there is no unique reason that we can currently think of that would stop the Kindles being approved
A third theory spreading the web is content licensing. Although Amazon own a tonne of content providers in the UK and EU, such as LoveFilm (similar to Netflix in the US), they don’t have the relevant distribution deals for multiple platforms of delivery currently in place. Several sources are also suggesting that the issues lie in supply, which could be most likely considering the current demand in the US alone.
We’ll update you on any new developments. Were you hoping to get your hands on the one tablet that could finally compete with the iPad? If so, share your plans for getting hold of one in the comments below.
All three theories are plausible.
There’s some corroboration for the licensing theory. If you look at the home page of amazon.co.uk the top item in the upper left under “shop all departments” is “Books.” If you look at the home page of amazon.com, the top item is “Unlimited Instant Videos.” In other words, Amazon has the streaming video service already in place and available on internet-savvy TVs. The UK (and other EU countries) don’t have any video streaming service available from Amazon.
I expect this is simply a matter of time. Can’t imagine Amazon will want to give up the European market.