Will Your CD Player Tell on You?

An anonymous reader writes "Ever feel like not being a marketing statistic? Well just by playing certain store-bought compact discs in your home or office computer, your new music disc may be transmitting your listening habits in real time to the respective record company...." Charming. Read on for more... Anonymous Continues: "A company by the name of Bandlink is providing technology to record companies that allows a cd played in a personal computer to contact their server and relate statistics such as what track you're listening to and when you're listening to them. This information is then compiled into customizable reports that allow the record company to develop "User Profiles". There are benefits listed for the consumer such as cd-specific chatrooms, concert information, etc but the question remains: What's your price for privacy? The only indication that the cd you're purchasing is Bandlink "enabled/disabled" is a small logo on the packaging. There is no mention of a opt in/opt out agreement when the cd is inserted on the website and none was displayed in a personal demonstration.

Favorite quote from their website: "Virtually any information you want to know about your fan or the quality of your release can be obtained.""

Comments

My desktop is my property

[Sean80]

You know what? I think the law should start considering my computer desktop and my network connection as my personal property. Want to display a popup on my desktop? Sure, $5 a time. Want to send some bits on my behalf? Sure, $1 million a time. If you try and steal advertising space on my desktop, or steal some of the bits that I own, then you go to jail.

Re:I read their site a little more closely...

[doormat]

So what happens if I dont agree with their license? Do I not get to play the CD, or do they just not collect any information. Or do they use misleading language to trick the consusmer into hitting yes?

Everything else you do is being tracked

[ToasterTester]

Every time you use a credit card, grocery store discount card, write a check they put through a reader, login to something, and so on and so you're are being profiled. I used to work for the second largest ISP, and everything you connected all your connection attempts and other info was beening uploaded during the connection. Many of the major corporation now run software that monitors your calls, and internet activity. We are being monitored, counted, tracked, profiled, and categoried so much does it even matter. All this is just business, if get into all the tracking the goverment does, and you'll really feel like a specimen under a microscope.

Actually in many way I feel there is safety in numbers. If they were only monitoring a we few people I would be nervous, but when the amount of data being collected we are people just numbers in a statisitc somewhere. Just another brick in the wall.

Long URL's (or is that URI ;-) )?

[T-Kir]

Although I use the free ZoneAlarm.. I'm also pretty restrictive about what programs I allow access, i.e. why oh bloody why does WMP require internet access when playing a media file when all the required codecs are installed (pile of crap it is).

But, the cynic in me keeps shouting out this idea... what is to stop the disc (well apart from disabling autoplay, unless MS has some other "backdoor" auto execution of something on new media) from opening up a browser window with a heavily customised piece of url every now and then? The default access permissions will allow any web browser to do it's stuff?

Just food for thought.

Re:good lord

[base3]

A modest proposal:

PC's are cheap now--run two, one with an Internet connection, and one without. Network internally with IPX/SPX or NetBEUI. Download your entertainment on the Internet connected PC. Play the downloaded content on the disconnected PC. Voila`--the media players, etc. can't call home. For added security, don't do anything sensitive on the Internet connected machine.

This setup isn't airtight, but it's a damn sight better than giving RealMedia, Microsoft, and every other spyware purveyor on the face of the earth unfettered access to the same machine that contains your financial information or files which indicate certain, um, proclivities.

There is an opt-in/opt-out agreement.

[bmetzler]

It's very simple. If you opt-in you put the cd in your cd player, and let the company profile you. If you opt-out you pass up the cd and move along.

But I'm all for tracking people's CD usage. That allows companies to market more targetable CD's. Instead of producing CD's that people buy because they "heard" they were good, and then listened to only a few times before getting disgusted with it, it lets them find out what music people listen to over and over again.

-Brent

This has been going on for years on DVD disks...

[Esterhaus_48]

Many DVD disks include "InterActual" (previously known as "PC Friendly") software which is autorun upon DVD insertion on Windows machines. To the typical home consumer, the message presented appears as if it originated from the PC itself, prompting the user to install the software in order to view the DVD content.

There are several issues with this, and relavent to the topic of "illegitimacy of spyware":
1. "InterActual" doesn't actually install an MPEG2 decoder filter, it merely uses the existing filter provided with a new PC
2. "InterActual" software attempts to redirect the user to whatever content is available online relating (or not) to the title being viewed - spam essentially
3. "InterActual" assigns itself as the default DVD playback application in Windows, and thus the user is subjected to the inferior quality of the DVD navigation software
4. "InterActual", if the user performs the standard "click-thru" agreement to watch their DVD content, broadcasts information about what DVD content the user views

Suffice to say, these points are easily discovered with a Google search, so I'll refrain from excessive linking and leave further research to the reader.

Now, for the more-than-capable user (read: most of you reading this), an explanation for preventing/disabling/uninstalling this spyware is obviated. But as the initiated, it's our duty to explain this to those who may not understand (read: friends, neighbors, family) what happens with spyware such as "InterActual" software.

On a personal note: After purchasing my last PC from Dell (please no "Dude" jokes) and inserting a DVD disk, it presented me with a dialog informing me that "InterActual" software was attempting to install and overwrite my settings, and gave me the option to block "InterActual" from installing on my machine. As expected, content is played through the standard DVD software provided by the OEM and I don't have to see that annoying banner anymore when I insert an "InterActual" or "PC Friendly Enabled!" disk.

Cheers!

J. Esterhaus