As a follow-up to a story originally posted here a few days ago, Declan McCullagh reports:
North Carolina’s tax collectors said Wednesday that they never demanded personal information such as book titles from Amazon.com, which filed a federal lawsuit against the state this week seeking to keep that information confidential.
“Amazon’s complaint is misleading in alleging the department has required detailed information revealing personal consumer preferences, such as book titles,” North Carolina Secretary of Revenue, Kenneth Lay, said in a statement.
But CNET has obtained correspondence from the Department of Revenue that calls North Carolina’s claim into question.
Read more on cnet.
Elsewhere, Evan Schuman had written:
In its latest move to defend itself against state taxation, Amazon.com on Monday (April 19) sued North Carolina officials for seeking customer names, declaring that “the disclosure will invade the privacy and violate the First Amendment rights of Amazon and its customers on a massive scale.” To make its case, the federal filing lists several of the North Carolina purchases Amazon considers to be most embarrassing.
Read more on StorefrontBacktalk.