Reuters, today, in Amazon’s Kindle Fire lets kids charge up a storm writes:

…it comes with your Amazon account information preloaded, along with “1-Click” ordering. That means anyone who is holding that device can place an order, whether it’s their account or not.

My question is whether this behavior is by design or by accident. In Almost No-one Changes Their Settings I referred an example from Microsoft where the settings were the result of what the developer left them as, not what was best for the user.

In this case, it sure is in the interest of Amazon to leave this on. Frictionless purchasing is what makes them money. Lots of money. And the Fire is merely another sales channel for them, not a reader, video watcher or game player like other tablets.

It’s not in the interest of Kindle Fire owners, because strangers like me can pick up anyone’s device and purchase that $599.00 Lego Millennium Falcon I have always wanted. Unless the owner catches it in time, I get my toy for free.

Apple, on the other hand, defaults their purchases on the iPad to requiring a password for this reason, they know the device will get passed around and want to protect the owner’s credit card.

By design? By accident? Who knows for sure, but I’ll bet on design. Anyone got a Kindle Fire for me to play with for a few minutes?