I wouldn't have.
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...nd-whale-meat/
...according to a new report (pdf) from the Environmental Investigation Agency, an NGO, one of the world’s biggest digital companies is facilitating not only a brisk business in illegal ivory, but also the sale of meat from endangered whales
Rakuten Ichiba—the Japanese online marketplace of Rakuten Group,......
While I would normally ignore the actions of a parent company when they are legal, sometime around the 5th or 6th time this story crossed my radar I was struck by the contrast between Amazon and Rakuten.
As my regular readers probably know, Rakuten own Kobo, the Canadian ebook firm, and that leads us to a rather curious situation. Many people in digital publishing love to hate Amazon, often attacking the retail giant for its business practices. I wonder how they will react to the news about Rakuten?
On the one hand, we have a retailer which is viciously competitive, while on the other hand we have a retailer who deals in endangered species.
Okay, Rakuten technically runs a marketplace where other people deal in endangered species, but that point is irrelevant. Amazon not only doesn’t deal in this morally repugnant trade, they have even banned any mention of ivory or whale products from their Japanese retail website (so has Google).
I am not going to pressure you to in any way respond to this news, but I do want to leave you with this thought. The next time you read a rant about how terrible Amazon is, just remember that they are now the lesser of the 2 evils, and that Amazon’s strongest global ebook competitor after Apple is actually a greater evil than Amazon.
if there's any sensible way for us Kobo owners to register disgust/protest, please advise.
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...nd-whale-meat/
...according to a new report (pdf) from the Environmental Investigation Agency, an NGO, one of the world’s biggest digital companies is facilitating not only a brisk business in illegal ivory, but also the sale of meat from endangered whales
Rakuten Ichiba—the Japanese online marketplace of Rakuten Group,......
While I would normally ignore the actions of a parent company when they are legal, sometime around the 5th or 6th time this story crossed my radar I was struck by the contrast between Amazon and Rakuten.
As my regular readers probably know, Rakuten own Kobo, the Canadian ebook firm, and that leads us to a rather curious situation. Many people in digital publishing love to hate Amazon, often attacking the retail giant for its business practices. I wonder how they will react to the news about Rakuten?
On the one hand, we have a retailer which is viciously competitive, while on the other hand we have a retailer who deals in endangered species.
Okay, Rakuten technically runs a marketplace where other people deal in endangered species, but that point is irrelevant. Amazon not only doesn’t deal in this morally repugnant trade, they have even banned any mention of ivory or whale products from their Japanese retail website (so has Google).
I am not going to pressure you to in any way respond to this news, but I do want to leave you with this thought. The next time you read a rant about how terrible Amazon is, just remember that they are now the lesser of the 2 evils, and that Amazon’s strongest global ebook competitor after Apple is actually a greater evil than Amazon.
if there's any sensible way for us Kobo owners to register disgust/protest, please advise.