Hasta La Gadget!

Just a few days ago, eBook lending service Lendle saw its API access revoked by Amazon, and a discussion kicked off about the future of eBook lending services in general and whether or not Amazon through that lending eBooks to friends – or building a service that supported or leveraged that feature – would eventually lead to lost eBook sales. 

Yesterday, Lendle reported that Amazon had contacted them with instructions on what they had to do in order to get their API access reinstated: specifically to disable the Book Sync tool that synchronizes a user’s Kindle books with their Lendle account. Lendle disabled the feature, and their API access was restored the same day. 

The Book Sync utilities allowed users to post a list of their book collections to their Lendle accounts, so they could see all of the books they owned and other members could see their books as well. Amazon said they don’t allow the kind of access that Lendle used to gather that information. The end-result? Lendle users will have to manually add the books they own to their Lendle accounts going forward, or at least the books they’re willing to lend. Users with massive eBook libraries will feel the most pain here, but at least Lendle is back in business, and its users still have a way to trade and lend eBooks to one another. 

[via MSNBC]