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Topic: Amazon

Kindle Fire, Touch not available to Europe: Blame U.S. legal concerns?

Summary: Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet and Touch e-reader will not be coming to the UK market, after Amazon.co.uk confirms.

Zack Whittaker

By for iGeneration |

Amazon revealed its four new tablets to compete with other major players in the market yesterday.

But amid the excitement amongst consumers and fierce tension amongst tablet manufacturers, Amazon buried the news that two of the new tablets would only be available in the U.S. market -- leaving the UK and European markets out in the cold.

The new Amazon Kindle Touch, the touch-screen e-ink powered e-book reader (left), along with new Amazon Kindle Fire tablet (right), the 7-inch colour display, Android-powered tablet, will only be available in the United States when the two devices go on sale.

It is believed, however that the new Kindle will still go on sale outside of the U.S., at a cost of £89.

Amazon did not respond for comment at the time of publication.

UK customers will no doubt be disappointed, looking forward to the streaming services and advanced models -- a market which has yet to break away from the traditional computer into the tablet space. While iPad sales are doing well, compared to other European markets and the United States, the UK is still behind.

Update: In reflection, it may be due to U.S. cloud and legal concerns regarding the Silk browser, as documented by colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nicols. In short, the tablets cannot be sold in the European market because the cloud-based browser would be in breach of European data protection laws. Though data would reside in an EU-based datacenter, because Amazon is a U.S. headquartered company, the data would still be vulnerable to U.S. law.

The UK student market alone accounts for around 2.5 million students, which would have been a surprisingly easy target for Amazon to pitch its new tablets at. Considering e-readers, particularly the Kindle, have been popular amongst campus bookstore goers, Amazon could take a hit from not plugging the European market with the upcoming tablets.

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13 comments
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  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    ANd yet again, the UK is left out. Well done Amazon.
    michaeleaton@...
    Reply Vote

  • No worries ...

    ... the Fire2 will be so much better!
    johnfenjackson@...
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    The Kindle Touch looks interesting, but since I live in Canada it won't be an option for a while.
    Mike (not Cox)
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    This sort of thing casts much doubt on all the "Kindle Fire will hurt iPad and bury Android" stories.
    dsf3g
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

      @dsf3g No, it doesn't.
      barleyherb
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    this is the stuff that is supposed to compete with iPad? hahahaha
    MonkeyBall
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

      @MonkeyBall Quit seeing things that don't exist. It's not competing with the iPad. It's taking the lower end of the market that Apple doesn't want to mess with.
      Aerowind
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    It's not the browser, or why would it affect the Touch? For God's sake, couldn't it just be that it's a brand new product line and they're bringing it out one region at a time? A bit of overthinking going on methinks.
    barleyherb
    Reply Vote

  • You expect too much

    I don't remember Amazon introducing the new model at once for US and international markets. This time they did it which the basic Kindle - and it's available immediately.
    ebookfriendly
    Reply Vote

  • Blame the US Patriot Act

    The issue with EU and Canada is that the Patriot Act requires US-based companies to divulge data in their datacenters if demanded by the US Government (presumably interested in what jihadists curl up with when they're tired from a day of mayhem and murder) - even if the datacenters are based outside the US. Hence to avoid being ground down between the conflicting laws of overweening governments - Amazon and other US-based cloud companies can't serve EU or Canada. Amazon and others get around this by not only setting up data centers in those countries, but legally distinct entities beyond the reach of the Patriot Act. This takes time and money - so Amazon will simply grow the US market first and then reinvest profits to increase capacity in the EU and Canadian "availability zone" for AWS.
    dstein42
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    It's a shame, because the cloud stuff should be software-only, right? Could they not just let us have the newest tech, but just have a different software version for the affected countries turn off the cloud stuff? That would be awesome...
    wthit56
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    one question, will the touch or fire work in the uk/eu if imported from america? any ideas
    coldfire0101
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Kindle Fire, Touch not available to UK, European markets

    I love the UK / Europeen distinction in the article. Hey, guys, UK is in EUROPE !

    Anyway, amazon already have cloud in Europe, so I'm not confident with this explanation for the non availability of the Kindle Fire in Europe.
    conovor
    Reply Vote
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