iGeneration

Charlie Osborne
Home / News & Blogs / iGeneration

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

By | September 29, 2011, 3:02am PDT

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

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.

Related:

Around the network:

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

More from “iGeneration”

Topics

U.S., Amazon.com Inc., U.K., Amazon Kindle Fire, Tablets, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, a criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, Canterbury, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Disclosure

Zack Whittaker

I worked briefly with Microsoft UK in 2006 but no longer have any connection with the company. Regardless, I remain impartial and unbiased in my views.

I don't hold any stock or shares, investments or industrial secrets in any company, but have signed confidentiality agreements with a number of UK and U.S. organisations, whose names I am not at liberty to disclose.

I was involved with Kent Union, the University of Kent's student union, undertaking voluntary, non-salaried, elected positions between early 2009 and mid-2010.

No other company, body, government department, non-governmental organisation or third sector organisation employs me or pays me a salary in any capacity whatsoever.

As a freelance journalist, whenever expenses are given and taken by a company that is not CBS Interactive, these will be disclosed in each relevant post to ensure transparency.

I currently work with a UK law enforcement unit, but this is an entirely separate position which bears no connection to other work.

(Updated: 23rd October 2011)

Biography

Zack Whittaker

Zack Whittaker, criminologist who studied at the University of Kent, UK, is a journalist, writer and broadcaster.

After studying criminology at university, though still in his early-20's, he has already had a series unconventional work and voluntary positions. He has worked with researchers studying neurological illnesses like Tourette's syndrome (which he suffers from), has given lectures on the nature of disabilities in the public community, and occasionally ends up speaking on television and radio discussing the events of the day.

He first had academic work published at the age of 22, then still an undergraduate, and has been cited by a wide range of publications: from the Huffington Post, Business Insider, AllThingsDigital, The Atlantic Wire and CBS News.

Talkback Most Recent of 13 Talkback(s)

Talkback - Tell Us What You Think

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

Blog Roll

Blog Archive

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources