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Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos has apologized for the way his company handled the deletion of two George Orwell titles from its customers Kindle readers.

Last week Amazon, without notice, deleted customers copies of Orwell's "Animal Farm" and "1984" later saying the action was taken at the request of the publisher. After removing the titles from its catalogue, Amazon deleted the titles from all of its customers Kindle devices. Customers were refunded for their purchase of the titles.

Jeff Bezos

In a Kindle Community forum post, Bezos apologized for the error. "This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.

"It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."

 "With deep apology to our customers."

The Kindle terms and conditions state digital content is licensed to the user, but not owned by them.

"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."