Backbytes: Taking delivery

Amazon pokes two fingers up at France's department of silly rules

There's little that French bureaucrats won't do in order to stifle the market - especially to keep dying industries going just that little bit longer, like local book shops.

In addition to un-European-Union-like rules banning books from being discounted by more than five per cent, the French state has also banned free delivery - all in the name of keeping rinky-dink town centre book sellers in business just a little bit longer.

Amazon France, though, has poked two fingers up at that rule by fixing the price of delivery at just one solitary euro-cent. Who didn't see that coming?

Presumably, France will soon be banning e-books, too, and lobbying Brussels for an EU-wide tax on PDF attachments.

@backbytes