Last month, the French parliament took a strong stand in favor of small book retailers. The governing body voted in favor of a proposed law to ban major online book retailers—including Amazon and the French retailer FNAC—from offering free delivery on book orders. The logic here is evident: hit consumers in the pocketbook, and they'll be more inclined to shop local. English language French-news site France 24 reported at the time that the country had "one of the highest number of traditional book shops in the world—with a total of 3,500, of which around 800 are single independent businesses" (that's compared to about 1,000 total in the UK).

Amazon, at least, has not taken this situation lying down. The free delivery law took effect on July 8, and France 24 reported this week that the digital retail behemoth has found a workaround (at least for the shipping—a five percent discount on book orders has been removed). "We are unfortunately no longer allowed to offer free deliveries for book orders," Amazon.fr's FAQ (Google Translate) reads. "We have therefore fixed delivery costs at one centime per order [0.01 Euros, or roughly a US penny] containing books and dispatched by Amazon to systematically guarantee the lowest price for your book orders."

This is by no means the first time France has tried to put a damper on major US tech companies dabbling in books or other reading materials. In 2011, the country updated an old law related to printed books that then allowed publishers to impose set e-book pricing on Apple and others. And in 2012, there was the very public dispute between French lawmakers and Google over the country's desire to see French media outlets paid for having their content pop up in search results. At least for now with this most recent situation, an online giant has found a relatively quick and easy way to regain the upperhand.