If you are interested in this topic then I would recommend reading If self-publishing is the new Wild West, who’s the Sheriff? by Chris McCrudden (2013), which considers some of the regulatory problems with self-publishing and possible solutions.
With my digital age hat on, the most interesting part of this story is the awkward way that WHSmiths froze their entire website rather than just take the offending ebook/s off the shelf. This might have been done on purpose, as a PR gesture, to make sure all web customers saw the message, but it might also have been the quickest and easiest technical fix. If you compare this to the analogue world, would a retail chain shut a bookshop for three days while they went and took a book of the shelf?