Amazon allows Kindle owners to pay extra to remove advertisements

October 5, 2011 By Mike Flacy

New owners of the ad-supported Kindle really don't have to pay attention to the saying "caveat emptor". Amazon has created a way to opt out of advertisements on the lower cost Kindle.

Those of you who are tired of staring at advertisements when playing around with the ad-supported Kindle now have an option to remove the advertisements for an additional fee paid directly to Amazon. The difference in price between the ad-supported model and regular model is $30, the exact fee needed to ditch the advertisements. The lowest cost ad-supported model sells for $79 while the model without ads can be purchased for $109. However, the difference on the Kindle Touch models is slightly more at $40. An ad-supported Kindle Touch sells for $99 while the regular model sells for $139. An ad-supported Kindle Touch 3G sells for $149 while the regular model is priced at $189.

To remove the advertisements and pay the upgrade fee, users can go to the “Manage Your Devices” page and unsubscribe from “Special Offers.” Fair warning: once the Kindle has been rid of the advertisements, it’s impossible to revert to the previous ad-supported model and get a refund on the upgrade fee. Amazon Special Offers come in the form of full-page screensavers and small ads on the homescreen. This upgrade program allows users to purchase the ad-supported models from Amazon and measure their level of annoyance with the advertisements. This also allows users that receive an ad-supported Kindle as a gift to upgrade and ditch the advertisements.

Only the tablet-style Kindle Fire is currently without an ad-supported model. It’s likely that Amazon will roll out an ad-supported version of the tablet after the initial launch, likely taking advantage of the expanded media capabilities of the device. The Kindle Fire is launching next month on November 15 and can be preordered for a cost of $199. Amazon is positioning the Kindle Fire as a media consumption device, designed to sell access to movies, music, books, magazines and games through Amazon’s marketplace.

Correction: Special Offers do not appear on the screen while reading e-books on the Kindle. They do appear while reading through content on the Home Page.

Showing 8 comments

Docster at 7:17am 6th October 2011 Ditto SABST79. I was on my way to leave the same comment and you beat me here. :-) Good work.Also, I'd have to say that the area of professional journalism has deteriorated seriously over the last 20 years. I think journalists often can't spell or write a complete sentence, so why should they have to actually research their stories for the truth factor? If the dumb and dumber readers don't recognize the grammar mistakes, I'm sure they won't think about whether the story is true or not.
1. Jeffrey Van Camp at 8:21am 6th October 2011 Mike doesn't own a Kindle and made a small error. It has been corrected. I hear a lot about professional journalism deteriorating. In some ways, I think you're right, but you just engaged in an activity that has improved journalism. Try travelling back in time and getting a newspaper or TV broadcast to fix an error. It rarely happened. And there were plenty of errors.
  1. sabst79 at 8:33am 6th October 2011 Good point. Though what I think he should've done is added a correction note at the bottom of the article. That's what most reputable publications do these days. And mentioned that advertisements in no way show up while you're reading the Kindle.
    Ian Bell at 9:36am 6th October 2011 I agree about the note. Jeff will add one to the story.
    Mike Flacy at 9:48am 6th October 2011 Thanks for correcting Jeffrey. I just logged on this morning to check out the responses. And no, I do not own the Kindle. I'm aware that the special offers appear while reading through content on the home screen as outlined on Amazon's support page for the Kindle, however I should have done a better job being more specific.
    Mike Flacy at 9:52am 6th October 2011 Added the note at the bottom.
sabst79 at 6:51am 6th October 2011 Your article is incorrect. Ads DO NOT appear while reading on the Kindle. They only appear as screensavers and a small advertisement on the bottom of the home page. You should fix your error in the article and you should do research first next time before writing something so obviously incorrect.
1. Ian Bell at 7:57am 6th October 2011 Thanks for pointing this out. I will ask Mike to update the story.