amazon in canada

Amazon.com has applied to open and run its own fulfilment center in Canada. Currently, Amazon outsources all inventory control and delivery to Canada Post because of existing rules on foreign ownership of “book publishing and other cultural industries”. For those who don’t know, Amazon.ca has a very limited item selection compared to Amazon.com and pricing is higher. There’s also no fancy features like Amazon Prime. According to a Globe & Mail article it looks like the Harper government might approve the application. Unforunately, both book publishers and book sellers aren’t crazy about the idea. If Amazon lost its application the only winner would be Chapters/Indigo (which probably owns 90% of the bookstores in Canada) and places like BestBuy.

Personally, I can’t wait. Online retail in Canada is a certified wasteland. The only exception to that is Well.ca.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation Get Approval To Merge – Media Decoder Blog – NYTimes.com. holy hell. you think ticketmaster is expensive now? just wait.

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China. some crazy china news.

CBC News – U.S. Steel challenges Investment Canada Act. the gov is suing them over not keeping employment levels they agreed to when they bought Stelco.

Jobs to The Little App Factory: Name change “Not that big of a deal”. that’s awesome.

Your Money – The Higher Lifetime Costs of Being a Gay Couple – NYTimes.com. those are some pretty large numbers. boo america.

how hospitals treat same-sex couples – well blog. it’s odd to think that same-sex couples are advised to carry their marriage license in case of a medical emergency.

Big City – Skadden Offers Lawyer $80,000 to Take a Year Off – NYTimes.com. $80K is one third of an associate salary at that firm.

FRONTLINE: black money. the us, the uk, saudi arabia, arms deals, and dirty money. the US is the only one who ends up looking good in all this.

Jim Webb’s courage v. the “pragmatism” excuse for politicians – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com. great article about the state of politics in the States and about Jim Webb’s campaign for prison reform.

TheStar.com | Driver clocked at 250 km/h
. It was an Infiniti G35. Note to self, don’t drive on the 400 at 1am. and why aren’t cars capped at like 150kmh?

Torture Report Could Be Trouble For Bush Lawyers | Newsweek Periscope | Newsweek.com. if no one’s going to jail, can we at least get a disbarment? via ram.

Credit Crunch Unmasks Madoff – BusinessWeek. This hedge fund’s losses might total $50 billion. It was a classic ponzi scheme.

TheStar.com | GTA | Accidental tourists land in hot water at border. this guy almost drowned in the Niagara River, washed up in the US, was brought to hospitals, and is now being held in detention for “illegally entering the US”.

Did Bush think McCain was tortured. by his definition of torture, no. via ram.

Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA. no surprise there.

amazon acquires abebooks

Techcrunch is reporting that Amazon is acquiring AbeBooks. Abe was actually around before the world wide web when it was a tool for used book stores to find used and rare books at stores across the country. It’s current website let’s end users do the exact same search.

What’s very interesting, and not mentioned by techcrunch, is that the company is Canadian and will be keeping their Canadian presence. This is interesting because Amazon doesn’t currently have a Canadian presence because of some legal issues. If they did, then they’d be subject to Canadian content laws regarding the percentage of Canadian book titles they sell on Amazon.ca. I don’t know how they could have structured the deal that the two entities are separate yet not (though I’m not as crafty as corporate lawyers).

Bruce Schneier: CCTV doesn’t keep us safe, yet the cameras are everywhere | Technology | The Guardian. via lukas.

globeandmail.com: Guantanamo detainees have rights, court rules. it’s good to know that the two sides were so violently opposed.

No One’s Going to Take Away Our Data, But What Can We Do With It? | Redfin Corporate Blog. so MLS settled with the DOJ over antitrust and online realtors have to be allowed access to the MLS database though there’s some catches. this is still good news.