Hey, let's ignore the sorry sony tale for a moment (he says while writing on one of their Vaios). And let's talk about amazon. Once everyone's friend, that chippy underdog. Do you remember the first xmas of amazon.co.uk, when they sent their regular users all a xmas present? Do you remember how you could easily find a phone number and talk to someone? Maybe you even knew how easy it wss to commit insurance fraud through them (claim for stolen software, get the insurance company to make the cheque out to amazon for 'replacements', pay it into your amazon account, phone them up to refund into your account)? Well no more. Now they're just a big monopoly dominating consumer space. There is no real other option for buying books online in the UK at least. And they're using their muscle to exert pressure over other areas. First they patented the 'one-click' system (and then sued Barnes and Noble for infringement), and now they've patented the way they request reviews from customers. There's even some talk of them attempting to patent the sending of automated emails to customers who have forgotten their friends' addresses. It's patenting of a business method. And it's clearly bollocks. As business 2.0's blog points out, it's as if Victorian businesses had patented 'stacking shelves'.