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iTunes is Malware?
Moby writes "On the heels of the big Apple love-in that is Macworld comes some interesting but alarming news. Recently a few blogs have started to indicate that iTunes is tracking your music preferences and using that data to recommend other songs from iTMS. The article provides a good overview, with some recommendations of its own. Basically, iTunes is tracking your music and sending the data back to Apple servers. This info is then used to advertise songs that may be to your tastes. A convenient feature, perhaps, but it raises concerns over privacy."
You may remember that Amazon even patented a similar technique. And I've always suspected my local grocery store of profiling me. Afterall, I hand them a little tag on my keychain for my discount, they scan it and suddenly my name is on the reciept. I'd be naive to think they aren't generating statistics about me and secretly making note that I buy far more long grain wild rice than the average consumer.
So what's the problem here? The problem is that I don't like it. I don't want a computer program diagnosing me at a hospital even if it is built on solid Bayesian probability models and I don't want a profile of my musical tastes being generated on a company's database. My taste in music is my business and I don't want other people knowing that my most listened to album is Tom Dooley and Other Hits by The Kingston Trio.
All I've learned from this is that a big company is a big company whether it's Microsoft, Sony, Apple or Google.
From the article: Oh, come now, you're telling me you've trusted Apple? What has Apple done to gain your trust? They're a profitable corporation and that's where their interests lie. How to get the moneys from your hands to theirs as efficiently as possible.
The only thing that makes me sad about this is that local bands still lose out because I doubt they'll ever make recommendations unless tens of thousands of users are showing that association. I wish Apple would make a service called halfTunes that sold songs at 50 or 25 or free for bands that are looking for exposure, not profits.
My work here is dung.
First of all, I don't know how this qualifies as iTunes suddenly being "malware", but anyway...
Edit -> Hide MiniStore (or shift-command-M)
No information of any kind is sent when the MiniStore is disabled.
What iTunes 6.0.2 is doing:
Sending information about the currently playing track to Apple, and then displaying information related to that track in the iTunes Music Store in the MiniStore pane. It is not broadly "tracking your music preferences".
Further - though we admittedly don't know this since Apple doesn't explain how it is using the data - there is no proof that Apple is doing anything but merely changing the MiniStore display based on what track you are listening to (which is very likely exactly what they're doing); not aggregating or "tracking your music preferences".
iTunes isn't doing this surreptitiously, either: the MiniStore pane clearly actively changes depending on what track you have selected. One would presume this does not happen via magic or the dark arts.
I'd love to have comment from Apple, and a clear presentation that information is being sent to Apple for x purpose, and a clear option to allow - or disallow - such use. I've looked through the iTunes 6.0.2 license and do not see any such guidance.
Granted, the MiniStore pane is present by default, but it can be disabled as easily as is described above.
I realize many people think this represents "going over the line"; but is there ever any instance where datamining to match items you might be interested in to your interests is acceptable? Is there any value to having this be the default state in certain instances where it could be significantly helpful?
While it's been some time since I installed iTunes (to provide support for friends and family -- hard to walk them through an interface I've never seen) it seems to me that the tracking and recommendations is optional. I could be wrong.
That said, even if it were NOT optional, I'm not sure I see the controversy here. People love the iTunes/iPod marriage and the "it just works" philosophy.
Part of that philosophy is the synergy that is the relationship between the user and the product. Apple seems to be good at defining and enhancing that relationship. So, it seems (to me) a logical extension to "observe" the music a user likes and make recommendations therein.
How different and onerous is this compared to the Amazon "people who have purchased this also have purchased ...,"
feature?
iTunes isn't my cup of tea, but for many users, this "malware", in my opinion, is a far different (and more benign) animal than, say, the SONY DRM debacle.
As for the author's opinion about how controversial this should be, quoting the last paragraph from the article:
specifically and especially to his last sentence, I don't (have a feeling this will be making some waves in the immediate future).Furthermore!, it should be pointed out the author "concedes" in the article:
which almost completely renders moot the original thesis.I always assumed that iTunes did this. If you do not like apple having any of your data do not do business with them at all.
Wouldn't iTunes already know all of your music tastes, since presumably you purchased all of your music from them? Granted they would now know that you listen to Britney Spears all day and night, but assuming you got your music through them, what is the big deal here?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I don't know about Malware - but it certainly includes that nagging, install shortcuts everywhere piece of nagware Quicktime.
My pics.
So? BFD. Certainly there are cases where privacy is a concern, and companies are harvesting personal data for ill gains. But is this really one of them? Calling it malware makes it sound like Apple was so sinister. It's no worse than Amazon tracking your purchase habbits and using it to suggest what other shoppers must buy, or the fact that you have to register with CDDB now, so they could potentially track what music you listen to. Of course the article doesn't even offer proof that the data is even retained by Apple, nor that there it is directly associated with your personal information. It could just be using the immediately selected song to suggest similar music, not a full history.
And what exactly sinister use will Apple have for this horribly damaging data, anyway?
Plus, it's so easy to disable. Get over it already.
I found the following links since submitting the story:
Here
and
Here
What is it doing that is malicious?
Spyware, sure, but not malware.
-stefan
//FIXME: Bad
What kind of music do terrorists listen to??
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
i can't friggen turn it on!! i reinstalled it, updated it rebooted it won't turn on! i checked my firewall, that an't it. i checked processes and it says it is on. grrr
i'm on winamp now. malware or not, i call it idiot ware for the time being.
A) Not much different than what Amazon does.
B) Use winamp, xmms, or
This is incredulous!! The ergonomically designed iTunes interface hides nothing from the user and shows any and all pertinent information at the briefest glance. The stylishly engineered music system and efficient online purchasing system offers only the highest level of quality entertainment with none of the underhanded skullduggery that lesser companies wallow in.
Apple soars above such outrages!! You will feel His Jobnesses' Wrath!!
May the Maths Be with you!
From the blurb: Basically, iTunes is tracking your music and sending the data back to Apple servers. This info is then used to advertise songs that may be to your tastes. A convenient feature, perhaps...
You know if this was Sony or Microsoft there would be howls of anger and the pitchforks and torches would already be out. Apple does it and; "hey, they're swell guys but I don't know how comfortable I am about this".
WTF? Where has all the anger gone?
If Steve Jobs was a record exec we'd have a battle cry that he should be flogged in public and put in the stocks for no less than 28.7 years.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
It's probably in the fine print of that huge ageement you click "I accept" to when you first install iTunes or upgrade it.
Amazon.com is a malicious website! When I click on a book, they show me other books that people have purchased with it!!!
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Seriously... does that REALLY surpise ANYONE here?
I didn't think so.
Don't Tread on Me
Thanks to your collection of Village People mp3s. :P
Depends on you perspective of it, I suppose. To some, this isn't a big deal at all.
I agree that not being given the option to disable such a feature is, if not underhanded, at least a sign of indifference. I mean, how difficult is it to simply add a prompt to allow or disallow usage reporting during installation? Not very. The fact that they didn't provide such a choice says a lot about how they view their customers.
On the other hand, how far are we, as customers, going to take this? Anymore it seems like people start an outrage over every privacy issue they can come up with. Seriously, you're never going to have complete privacy. Unless you become a hermit and shut yourself off from society, someone is always gonna take an interest in what you're doing. And you know what? I feel a lot safer knowing that people can't slink about completely undetected.
Anyways, I don't use iTunes, so...maybe my perspective on things is skewed.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
No. It is not.
Malware definition
Perhaps the news submitter ment to use the term spyware?
...and get over it.
The reccommendations feature in iTunes is fantastic. Amazon's Reccommendations page has a "I own it" check box. I use this page frequently to find new music or books or DVDs I would be interested in based on the other things I own (even those I didn't buy from Amazon).
From TFA, it hasn't been determined if the cookie sent back contains your Apple ID. It may not. It may not contain anything traceable or of a privacy concern. How about trying to use iTunes on a clean install without buying anything first and seeing if it does the same?
But one thing is for sure - if you want service of a personalized nature, you have to be willing to let someone know something about you.
Oh shit! Apple knows you listen to too much Britney Spears! Time to get hysterical and post to a bunch of blogs from starbucks on your powerbook.
I mean really? They are updating a database with songs you listen too? OMFG!!! IT's the end of the analogue world for good!!!
Too many paranoid nerds. Don't like it, don't use it. And if they do it, sue them. This crap is getting really old on all fronts. From the Corps using it, to the site like this continually reporting it.
SO WHAT?
Gosh! I need to get rid of my George Mickael tunes collection
First off it is not hurting your computer like Malware, or changing other apps to act differently it is part of the application. Secondly Apple already knows what song you download, (hence they need to bill you) All they are really doing now is figuring out how many times you listen to the music. To target their advertising to you, to give the best guess you want to hear. If you like heavy metal then you don't want to see advertisements (which are going to be there anyways) for Country Music. When you go to the Apple iTunes store you are normally there with the attempt to buy something you like. Much like how many of the adds on Slashdot are computer geek related, and many of the adds on apple sites are apple related. Honestly "the Man" is not going to get you for listening to this song 500 times vs 5 times. All the man is going to do is realize you like the song better then others and will offer you similar ones you may like as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm all for privacy, but this doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. Nobody bitches about Amazon customizing their storefront based on past purchases. Well, maybe they do, but I don't hang around with tinfoil-hat-types.
My point is that every time I go to the iTunes music store, I think, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if the store knew about my collection and taylored the site to my tastes. I really don't care to see the latest offering from Kelly Clarkson.
I guess the ideal thing would be if I were given a choice. I didn't see any mention of that in the article. To me, that would be one way to satisfy both crowds. I guess I'll have to fire up iTunes and see if I'm being "watched".
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
From Omniture, Apple, iTunes, and Privacy on since1968.com: I've installed Little Snitch and can confirm this behavior: if you launch iTunes on a Mac with the new MiniStore open (and it's open by default), iTunes attempts to contact 207.net, otherwise known as Omniture. See the screenshot above. And why on earth does a third party need to bury its IP address behind a string that looks like an intranet (local) address?
Call it market-ware (as if we need another tech term) if you like. On the one hand, Apple's trying to tailor content to its iTunes users and that is supposed to be a good thing. On the other hand, they are in league with marketers and are pulling this off in a slightly underhanded fashion. What does Apple have to hide?
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Does itunes deserve this hype? Obviously they can track what you buy, why does what you listen to the most matter?
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
In all seriousnes I will check the eula when I get home, but I bet there is something in there when you install a new version. On top of that, it only happens when you have the MiniStore open. The whole point of the MiniStore is to offer you music you might like. How else should it work?
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
you listen to a lot Anton Webern. Seriously, it turns out that people who bought Anton Webern's Variations for Piano, Op. 27 (all three of us) also bought Jeff Foxworthy--at least according to the ministore. That little gem of demographic goodness has brightened up my day so much I don't care how what info Apple gets from my listening habits.
Ever used an Internet browser? That sends data to various servers, does that constitute a risk to your privacy? Probably, but it doesn't make Firefox, IE & Opera 'malware', in the same way that even if iTunes is sending data to Apple, it's not necessaraly malware.
Kneejerk reactions like this are unsupprising given the current culture of "Oh my god, the've got my name and they know what music I like!". If you are conserned about your privacy with regard to a company or service, I suggest you start with their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy - If you don't like them, you don't have to use their service.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
What happens: iTunes sends a request to the music store if you click on a track in your iTunes Library. It displays the recommendations it received based on the track you clicked in a mini store below the library. If you dislike this, press COMMAND-SHIFT-M ( Edit > Hide MiniStore).
Is this spyware? I think the definition as used in the article is ways to broad:
spyware (because it sends information to a server) and adware (because it displays information to attempt to sell you products)My definition would include "without my consent and without me being able to turn if of". Maybe yours would be "without asking me BEFOREHAND".
The main problem is that we are developing a lot of technology that allows us to personalize any kind of service. This has been impossible in the past, but with the establishment of the web as data infrastructure and database driven applications on web servers accessing data from millions of users at a time, this all changed. I think we have to change the way we think about this and whom to blame.
I'm somewhat paranoid about my data, e.g. I only pay cash to leave no trace. On the other hand I LOVE amazons recommendation system and am very willing to give them informations not only about what I buy, but also about what I might buy. [But I wouldn't search amazon for the "Anarchists handbook" or "DIY pipe bombs" without deleting my cookies first.]
We're just at the beginning of the massive use of personalization. Wait a couple of years and someone will convince you with a service that requires tracking you via GPS 24h/day. The old idea of "minimal data collection" simply will not work. But 1984 wont happen either. We will get used to leaving data tracks everywhere. [One thing that really scared me was AT&Ts patent to read the RFID tags in your trash can to find out about your consumption habits.] It will happen because it is so convenient. Like gene modified fruit or gene therapy. Resistance is (basically) futile, though often worth a try.
Our main focus should be to push society into handling this wisely, if it cannot (or should not) be stopped. So push for privacy laws that do not simply allow or prohibit collecting data, but which clearly define who may access the data, what they may do with it, in which ways they have to inform you about it.
Control what is done with your data, not if it exists at all.
Chriss
--
memomo.net - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free
memomo: free web based language trainer DE-EN-ES-FR-IT
That's weird, I had been curious why it was recommending things like reo speedwagon and kenny rogers in the music store - I have no idea how it gets this based on my musical taste. It comes semi-close audiobook wise.
Whats the EULA say on this, if anything. If it says "iTunes will search your music, send information found to Apple and from this recommend you artists/songs" then there is nothing to cry about.
Someone get the EULA, scan it for info related to this and then we can talk Malware/Spyware. If it's there and you click Agree, then there is nothing to bitch about.
This should be really good for podcasters, they should get a nice set of statistics.
As for music, start shifting over to pod-safe music and lose this RIAA shit. Independent no-label music has been becoming much better and easier to find within the past half year or so. Many music-oriented podcasts have shifted to entirely pod-safe music.
One of the better new music podcasts is Podsafe Music Daily. It's around a half hour a day with a "Best-of" on Friday. If you set it up to record this, you'll always have a little something legal to listen to.
There are other legal podcasts, by the way. My favorite is "Coverville". Although it's not generally indi music, Brian has a license to "Broadcast" the songs.
As far as tracking the music goes, I really don't know if they are doing anything worse than Google or MSN or any of the other sites that collect information--at least they are offering a fantastic service in exchange.
I can't wait until we get ITUNES telling us what porn we might wan't to watch next.
How do you think Tivo Suggest works?
And I my Buoy Geordge, Gurls Allow'd, and Hilary Duph.
Think about it. If you buy music from the iTunes Music Store, Apple already knows what you've purchased and probably has a good idea about your listening habits.
Nothing to see here.
SiO2
iTunes recommends songs based on what you've purchased. Unfortunatly, they do a somewhat good job of it and keep recommending albums I already own and have in iTunes. You can click an "I already own that" button, but what a pain! Someone should recommend they add this tracking feature you speak of.
No. Absolutely not. Especially when they didn't ask my permission first.
They don't have to ask your permission first. Their tracking of your habits can simply be a condition of their license that allows you to use their program. Did you fully read the EULA for iTunes and iTMS? Just because they are nice and might provide you with a way to turn tracking off, doesn't mean that they are required to do it by default.
It is no worse than using gmail and getting ads based on the contents of an email.
:)
Who gives a crap. No one here uses iTunes cuz it isn't linux based.
Steve i want to have your baby!!!
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I woudln't call it malware. It's not specifically meant to hurt you.
Now adware, spyware, and bloatware... that's a different story.
Uninstall it now, and install Windows Media player or Real player. I hear they are much better.
P.S. I also heard the sky was falling...
Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
bs
"it raises concerns over privacy."
What? are you afraid it might get out that you listen to Britney Spears?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It would be interesting to re-phrase the question and replace "iTunes" with "Windows Media Player" and see what kinds of responses are generated by the Slashdot crowd.
Sample headline: "It seems the most recent update to Microsoft's bundled media application Windows Media Player is mining the music tracks that a user plays and sending that data back to Microsoft in order to present the user with similar tracks from the MSN Music Store. What Microsoft does with this data after Music Store recommendations are made is unknown."
Will the apologists for Apple and their data mining stand up in this case as well?
Interesting question, anyway.
B
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
My taste in music is my business and I don't want other people knowing that my most listened to album is Tom Dooley and Other Hits by The Kingston Trio.
/me tries avoid posting just to point out the irony of writing this on /.
*strain*
Procrastination Man strikes again!
I sure hope someone's looking at this stuff.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I want them to track my music listening habits. Maybe if they notice the bands I listen to, they will make deals to distribute music from Epitaph and Fat Wreck Chords artists. . . 'cause currently iTunes have almost nothing I want to listen to.
Pandora (http://www.pandora.com/) does EXACTLY this, and when it was discussed on Slashdot a few months ago, it was praised as being a huge innovation in music technology. What's the difference, and more importantly, whats the big deal?
Everyone knows tracking is only bad when it's from "evil" companies like SCO, Microsoft, or Sony. Apple is "good" and "on our side".
/satire In all reality, this would be fine if they had a clearly labeled option/popup when you first ran iTunes. "Hey, we'd like to track the songs you listen to so we can recommend some other songs we think you'll like" and not buried somewhere in a EULA, or not actually brought up at all. Then again, from what I can tell apple doesn't like to give users choice, they like to decide what's right and wrong for you. This truly isn't a flame either... after working back and forth with them extensively for over a year, it's just how they operate. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's not. In this case, I would say it's not.
Bad apple! Bad apple!
But seriously, do you think any of the iPod drones care that the "cool company" is tracking their musical habits? "As if!!" (blond girl continues on bobbing her head to the iPod, roller blading down the Venice beach boardwalk chewing on her bubble gum....)
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Their servers scan your e-mails and send you links on the gmail site that relate to your interest and what you are viewing. Does this mean Google is malware too? Personally when I use iTunes, its kind of nice to see other artist that I may not know about but has a similar sound to the bands I do like. As long as Apple doesn't sell my information (Name, Address, E-mail) to other companies so they can e-mail me crap about artists then I don't care.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Please. I WELCOME additions like this to products like iTunes. I don't even work in the advertising industry, I just seriously find it helpful. Can someone please explain to me why iTunes picking out an obscure band I've never heard of, but is similar to my tastes is bad? Who is it bad for? The newly discovered band that I *purchase* music from? Is it bad for me because I now have a cool new band I didn't know about? I'm missing something I guess.
The reality is that we are innudated with choice in our lives like never before. We suffer mentally and physically from this innundation. More choice is good, to a point, but study after study shows that pairing down choices in an intelligent manner (then making them without regret) actually reduces stress hormones and, in turn, can extend your damn life. I ain't just whistling Dixie! iTunes recommendations saved my life!
But seriously, selling product is a way of life. Advertising enables this. If someone can cut through the bullshit Celine Deion albums and get to the Franz Ferdinand for me, we all win.
Now, what will they do with this information on their servers? Well, ask Google, who does the same thing in their gMail application-- all it does is process this information to make recommendations. It doesn't decide you need to be on a government black list for exclusively listening to Death Metal.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
From the Apple Privacy Statement (http://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/)
.Mac, the iTunes Music Store, and on related websites. This helps us to determine how best to provide useful information to customers and to understand which parts of our websites and Internet services are of most interest to them.
What information we collect
There are a number of situations in which your personal information may help us give you better service. For example, we may ask for your personal information when you're discussing a service issue on the phone with an associate, downloading a software update, registering for a seminar, participating in an online survey, registering your products, or purchasing a product. At such times, we may collect personal information relevant to the situation, such as your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, and contact preferences; your credit card information and information about the Apple products you own, such as their serial numbers, and date of purchase; and information relating to a support or service issue. We collect information for market research purposes -- such as your occupation and where you use your computer -- to gain a better understanding of our customers and thus provide more valuable service. We also collect information regarding customer activities on our website,
...everyone thought it was so cool, In fact this aspect of Napster, where you could see other people's music collections, was what set it apart from other services. Its usefulness hasn't been matched since.
Amazon does exactly the same thing as iTunes, tracking your preferences to make recommendations to other users. No one complains about that.
...fucken moron discovers how online "recommendations" work. HOLY CRAP!
.max
Someone distract him during the next rainstorm or he might drown.
other artists you might enjoy include Pavarotti, Meat Loaf and on of the Wilson Philips chix.
We use iTunes to stream music to the whole family via a single server. That program is going to be REALLY confused about what music to suggest.
Proverbs 21:19
I read a lot of these comments so far, and I'm surprised... or maybe not at the apparent apathy towards reading EULA's and other things when you install software. I have been a long time iTunes user and have spent many a dollar there. I discovered the fact that it was profiling based on a particular scheme of purchases that I made. My musical tastes span the globe almost literally. And I could use that to my benefit to try this and it worked. And this was well over a year ago!
And you folks are just now finding this out???
Also on the next note, IF YOU AREN'T READING EULA'S OR AGREEMENTS WHEN YOU INSTALL SOFTWARE, THEN THE REAL PROBLEM IS WITH YOU. And in reality this is so true because iTunes would not be where it is today without the undying love of the music downloader who is now going legit after the death of "free Napster". And you just want to "get that thing installed so I can use it" kind of thinking.
I can't blame them for using a download demographic for pushing similar stuff. Everyone does it. I think they call that... "Marketing".
They teach that in school although I'm not sure where sometimes.
Cheers
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Has be on the iTunes front page for months now. It says "you bought 'x'" maybe you'd like "y." Everyone's fine with a local book/record store employee with whom you have a good rapport recommending a book or a cd. But the moment a corporation does it people freak out about privacy and data mining.
." is going to be the argument, "I'm a unique snowflake and tracking and grouping my interests makes me less unique."
"Well it sets a bad precedent . .
According to the definition you linked to, spyware is a subset of malware.
Can't RTFA, as its slashdotted, but if I buy a song from iTMS, they already know what I've bought from them, I'd expect them to tailor ads to my choices. They shouldn't be transmitting that data anywhere, as they already have it. Now, if I rip a CD in iTunes, and that data is reported back to iTMS, that's bad, even if they strip out personally identifying info. Though I'd call it spyware, not malware.
Oh my G-d! How can this be?
A... music store.
That's supposed to... let you enjoy music...
is... GASP!!!!
Keeping track of what music you play!!! ((SHOCK!))
So that it can.... (((HORROR!!!))) Suggest other tracks to enjoy!!!
MALWARE! MALWARE!
Get over your f-ing selves.
Local musics reps, those people who works at the records store for fun, that know what you like, and send you an email when that new track you migth like, that say hello by your name and tells you about that new band...
So, one goal of the e-commerse is the experience of shopping, and this can be achivied by being friendly and useful to the consumer.
Tracking preferences is what a sales rep do, and since electronic sales reps is your software and you navigator...
There is no excuse for malware, but, lets face it, people look this kind of tips, nice, and add a plus to their buying experience...
If you dont like to be tracked, dont use e-commerce, dont buy in the same store twice, don't use credit cards...
Â_Â
since1968.com claims Omniture is a marketing firm. This is not true, Omniture is a web analytics (web tracking) firm. That is, companies like Apple contract with Omniture to track web clicks for them. Apple might be using that data for marketing, but Omniture does not.
A friend of mine refuses to get a Safeway "club card" because he doesn't want his purchases tracked, resulting in him paying $5-$10 extra per visit--now that's conviction!
The funny thing is, he pays by credit card, meaning that they already know who he is!
I suggested he could enter my phone number into the keypad (thereby associating all his data with me, as well as providing me with free airline miles), but he demurred...
Quite over dramatic. Having it suggest other music based on what you are listening is hardly anything to be alarmed about. Many programs have similar features, including finding the information of a CD that you pop into your optical drive. Furthermore, iTunes is more than just a music player, you can also purchase music on it. Now if this were happening when the program was closed, or scanning other programs (Like Winamp) or difficult to uninstall (which iTunes isn't) then it would be another story.
Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie (deadtroll.com) have an excellent guide to privacy, in lyrics form.
You can find it for free download here: http://www.ampcast.com/music/22488/artist.php
Search for "privacy"
Listen.
Enjoy
Amazon isn't recording the movies I watch in my own home and recommended purchases to users based on that data. They're making purchasing suggestions based on products I've purchased from them.
I haven't purchased a single song through the iTunes Music Store. ALL the music I listen to through iTunes and on my iPod has been personally ripped from CD's I own. I have no business relationship at all with the iTunes Music store, it should NOT be collecting data on my listening habits.
You nailed it. Good work.
The "Just For You" section is Apple's stab at doing something like the reccomendations section of NetFlix with music sales, and from what I've seen so far, it has a long way to go before it's even useful data to me, let alone to some corporate boogie-man.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I find ironic the possibility that some of those who would object to this data mining, routinely share their musical preferences with the world via nuclear-powered subwoofers at 2:00am.
Proverbs 21:19
Granted, the MiniStore pane is present by default, but it can be disabled as easily as is described above.
Shouldn't a non-evil company have Opt-In rather an
Opt-Out - spammers are the ones who are supposed
to prefer opt-out.
Amazon is more aggressive than iTunes though. They collect a lot of info and use it across all of the amazon network. They can probably correlate surfing data from the alexa toolbar with your amazon info etc. And the amazon info is obviously verified with CC purchasing.
:)
Still, profiling sucks, no matter who's doing it.
IE google. Think of all the data they have. I predict person-targeted adsense ads within the year
this is nothing different than amazon keeping track of what you buy and recommending stuff you'd be interested in. it's a marketplace, and they're just showing consumers new stuff they'd be likely to consume. they're not sending the NSA the newest beastie boys track you downloaded. i've found that generally the albums they pick for me to check out are either ones i own already, or ones i hope to get. it's a good service, and as far as privacy concerns go, this is sooo far down on the list it's not even funny. now if you'll excuse me, i have to go make an international phone call...
From my experience as someone who has purchased a fair amount of music off of iTMS as well as ripped a number of CD's into my library, iTunes seems to only be making recommendations based on the stuff that I have purchased. For instance, I purchased a Jimi Hendrix album off of iTMS and all of my recommendations are now for classic rock albums, where as much of my music collection is classical, and jazz.
It would seem that that would be the easiest way since they are already keeping track of the songs that I have purchased with my unique apple_name to enable me to use them on muttiple machines, etc.
It seems very unlikely that they would be scanning my entire library as that would require them to overcome many obstacles such as incorrect tagging etc, just so they can give me a recommendation. The ROI just doesn't seem there.
It's funny as all get-out watching all the apple fanboys backpeddle when the shoe is on the other foot! HaHaHaHaHA! This is better than the saturday morning cartoons!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Today I went into Sam Goody and bought a CD. I was asked by the clerk if I wanted to reserve another artist's CD coming out next month! He was invading my privacy!
Or maybe not! Give me a break, you privacy nuts are going too far!
I don't want a computer program diagnosing me at a hospital even if it is built on solid Bayesian probability models
Actually, you may want to rethink that sentiment. The hospital that incorrectly diagnosed my depression also used Bayesian probabability models which it turns out, benefited me greatly. You see, these models turned out to falsely diagnose my mental disorder as a simple kidney stone.
Upon finding out (with a second opinion) that this was indeed not the case, I consulted my lawyer and sued the hospital for medical malpractice. The argument was that by using their computers in erroneously diagnosing their patients with Bayesian probability algorithms, they were endangering my health and welfare. After winning the lawsuit, I am now $14 million dollars richer and my depression has finally been cured! Thanks Thomas Bayes!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Can't you just prohibit iTunes from accessing the internet in your firewall? If you want to by some music via iTunes, temporarily enable it. Or does all of the previously blocked data get sent once it is enabled? I doubt it, but have no idea.
which almost completely renders moot the original thesis
how does that fact render any point moot about apple invading privacy? please explain, because, whether it's just one song you click on to start a playlist or every song that itunes plays is irrelevant.
The parent's point was that itunes is 1. sending information to apple about you without your express consent, and 2. using that information to sell you something. If microsoft was doing this, you'd be flinging your poop like an angry baboon.
Please adress the above salient (i numbered them for you) issues
Thank you Dave Raggett
Anyone who has greater than a 30 IQ will quickly learn the fact that the Apple people went to great lengths to take a perfectly good USB mass storage device and bastardize it by adding an artificial software layer on top of it called "iTunes". In order to use the device you have to use the iTunes client, which forbids shared access to the device, prevents copying mp3 files to device from multiple computers, prevents importation of native directory structures into the device -- it strips directory structures off the imported filenames and you wind up with John Denver, Slayer and Dieselboy in the same directory. Also transferring files to the device takes about 5-10 times longer than a similar USB drive.
What concerned me the most about Apple's braindead design choices with the iPod was that they were expecting people to spend two or three times the price that you would pay for a similar sized Archos Jukebox device. I just cannot justify spending two or three times the money for narrow minded crippleware that attempts to force their users into this thinking is "normal". No thanks, Apple. I'll buy a $45.00 Archos Jukebox 6000 on ebay, pull out the 6GB drive, plug in a 100GB toshiba notebook drive for $133.00 and flash the firmware with rockbox.org firmware. Adding music is as simple as plugging it into the USB and drag/drop all your files to it.
First the president starts recording our phone calls, and now Apple is looking at the music we buy from Apple.
What's next???
Will banks start sharing our personal data with vendors? Will manufacturers use warranty registration card data to track our buying habits? Will advertisers try to track our surfing habits with electronic tokens placed in our browser?
The possibilities are scary!
The tracking isn't bad but it is when "they" are being devious about such activity. If a user understands that iTunes or WMP reports usage, and I mean more than the "blindly clicking 'Ok', shrink wrap stuff" then it is fine and may even have some use and value. If someone iTunes/WMP notices a pattern and starts offering better selections to that user then everyone is happy. If on the other hand the application starts snooping around for music squirrled away on the machine to tell someone what songs you have and have not purchased through that mechanism, that can be used to incriminate someone.
Trust is the key where full disclosure is the mechanism. The clearer these guys are on what their applications are doing the better off we all are.
Anyone who wants to see what I listen to can go to http://www.last.fm/user/ed1bletal2get, so what apple does is harmless imho.
but it raises concerns over privacy
Because normally, on slashdot, it would "beg questions about privacy."
As for the actual, real thrust of the summary and headline and article: nonsense. This ain't malware any more than your mom remembering that you like your eggs scrambled makes her a Malparent.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It's hardley "Malware". Companies have been doing this for over 60 friggin years. Ever heard of Readers Digest? It's not a privacy issue and I'm glad they are doing it. Just a bunch of dumb-ass bloggers scrambling to add comments like they're In-the-know.
How is this different from every other website you visit? Yahoo Music does this as well.
I don't use itunes so I don't have an idea of whether they let you opt out. However I know that some ones I use, namely amarok, which does connect to audioscrabbler (I think) to look up other songs in my playlist which other people like as well based on what is playing right now. I see it as a neat feature to discover new songs in my own playlist or to go to the website and perhaps find new artists I have never heard of, but that people who share similar tastes with me also have.
But then again, I don't get the feeling of being pushed to purchase anything its just making recommendations.
from wikipedia:
Malware (a portmanteau of "malicious software") is any software program developed for the purpose of causing harm to a computer system, similar to a virus or trojan horse.
Other definitions of malware cite the software reinstalling itself after you uninstall it from your computer.
in short, iTunes is none of this. This is just garbage used by whoever wrote it to get publicity. iTunes finding relevant content based on what you purchase or listen to is just the same stuff that Google and practically every other company on the internet has been using for YEARS.
iTunes does no harm, therefore cannot even be considered malware. It can't even be considered ad-ware, since they don't sell off your personal information. It's not spyware either, they are just looking your purchasing history, which is absolutely not spyware, and it's obviously not a virus, trojan, or worm.
I mean come on Google has their entire company strategy based on targeted ads.
You should be allowed to choose whether or not you want this feature. You should know who is using this information and for what. Whats to stop them from misusing it? The issues is, the users should be explicitly notified.
iTunes, for what it does seems to consume an ungodly amount of PC resource. One would think that if it's NOT spying on you then it's probably the worst written piece of junk ever.
Thats my only problem with it. You can hide it but there is no disable preference, unless I am just not seeing it.
My karma is getting better everyday.
...and known Jobs the fuck out! (obligatory trendy-netspeak phrase)
When I first started reading this I got worried for a second--and then I remembered that I don't have an iPod, haven't installed iTunes and haven't ever paid for any music download.
I think the larger question here is if Apple is accumulating this info and associating it with the particular user,,,, and if they are selling or giving that info to anyone else. I for one do not welcome our new RIAA overlords.
And as I sit here now, I am pondering renaming a bunch of MP3's with artist, album and title names on variations of homosexuality, bestiality and Naziism and then installing iTunes--just to see what other selections it recommends....
~
iTunes does *not* send information on your local library to their servers - They use previous PURCHASES to determine what shows up in that box. Information that any normal company would collect.
...ever since they started bundling it with the "Free" QuickTime for Windows 2000 - you couldn't play a QuickTime movie unless you agreed to the iTunes EULA, and you couldn't uninstall it seperately afterwards.
It's an interesting thing, people's musical tastes. I mean, if you were to scroll through my iPod - one might discover somethings about my personality that I don't want known. I listen to a lot of depressing music, hense, someone might gather that I suffer from depression (something that I really don't advertise) if they click wheeled their way through my music files. Other people might be concerned about their privacy because they have tons of George Michael, Boy George and Elton John music on their iPod. ...you can tell alot about people from their taste in music. A bit too much. I feel a bit violated when I friend scrolls through my iPod. I wonder what they think about what I'm listening to like an unspoken insecurity.
F**K APPLE!
No matter how hot a girl is - some guy somewhere is sick of her shit.
Not sure that tracking purchases is really "malware", but I'm certainly not a fan of the way that the default Quicktime download is "QuickTime 7 with iTunes 6".
If I wanted iTunes I'd download it - I don't want it appearing on my PC because I installed something else. There is (or was last time that I needed it) a non-iTunes version that you can find after lots of hunting around, but it's sharp practice at least to make it available this way.
Get a couple of cell phones, one with a Brooklyn address, one with a Manhattan address, a credit card with a different Manhattan address, a bank with a Staten Island address, and she squats in New Jersey.
She's either a hooker or a cock-sucker for Al Qaeda.
The problem is not that every time you stick your head above the ground somebody's watching, that's now a given unless you're a Ted Kasinki living in a shack somewhere, but, what oversight recourse you have on the recorded info?
As for doing shit you're ashamed of... Don't. Either don't do it or don't be ashamed of doing it.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
How is this different than any of the recommendations made by Amazon or any other online retailer? The only real difference is that one tracks through your web browser, the other through your use of iTMS.
And calling it "malware" is extreme. I'm guessing the submitter meant spyware, as I don't see how this harms your computer.
The article is down, so I'm going by the summary.
To me it sounds like this outrage and alarm is due to the "Just for You" feature of the iTunes music store. I was under the impression that it only made suggestions based on your past purchase history, NOT from which tracks or genres you listen to most often within iTunes.
At first glance, this appears to be the case, looking at the suggestions it provides to me - they're nothing like the music I listen to the most, but closely related to a few tracks that I purchased from the store.
So unless someone has actually caught iTunes sending your listening history back to Apple's servers, I'd call this misguided FUD.
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
...if I've got my brushed aluminum hat on?
Apple knows I listen to Liberace, Mariah Carey, and Billy Ocean!
If you look at the article, scan down to "Dripping Water or Playing Christina Aguilera Music". If that's not a human rights violation, I don't know what is...
I don't understand the problem. If you are using the iTunes Music store, you are NOT anonymous. You have signed up, put in your name, and payed with your credit card, and credit card info. If you are concerned that they are tracking what songs you like, I would be a little more concerned about them taking your name. It's not an anonymous service. You've already given up your privacy by using the store. I'd read the article to see if even people who are not using the store are getting data sent back (which would be a privacy concern), but the site has been Slashdotted.
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
Don't you remember when Steve had the NSA guy on stage to demo iTunes?
Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.
Spyware-lovin' Apple exec - Steve Jobs
Chair-throwing Microsoft attack monkey - Steve Balmer
Incredibly creepy lead singer of Aerosmith - Steve(n) Tyler
My very strange possibly crazy uncle - Steve Cunningham
The lesson to be learned here is to be wary of anyone named Steve.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
From the website (last.fm)
Last.fm is the flagship product from the team that designed the Audioscrobbler system, a music engine based on a massive collection of Music Profiles. Each music profile belongs to one person, and describes their taste in music. Last.fm uses these music profiles to make personalized recommendations, match you up with people who like similar music, and generate custom radio stations for each person.
I personnaly get a lot of good suggestion from this web site,
my user profile: http://www.last.fm/user/Pocaille
Sounds like the author got caught purchasing Mariah Carey's Greatest Hits and an NSYNC compilation and just wanted to save some face.
http://www.last.fm/
does this already. its actually pretty helpful too if you're looking for related music.
To turn off iTunes Adware/Spyware just click on the first button at the bottom right of iTunes window, one with a square icon. MiniStore will not be showed and no data will be sent to iTMS.
As an iTunes user, I discoved The Arcade Fire and British Sea Power through their recommendation service. Today they are two of my favorite bands! I say good work Apple. It's damn near impossible today to find decent music on the radio, so this feature's a great tool for people like me with very specific music tastes.
The only thing I've noticed is that they are tracking the songs I _buy_, not the songs I play. That's their data.
My concern is a bit grander issue. It's not ITunes collecting information or Google collecting information, it is all of these companies all collecting the information and going... well I don't know where it's going. They all have legitimate reasons to collect the information and arguably their collection makes my experience as a consumer a bit smoother. But what happens with all this data in the long run?
The biggest hinderance to an effective police state is that it's very difficult to monitor what everybody is doing all of the time. The technology though is making this far more feasible. Cameras with facial recognition systems, gun shot detecting microphones (why not voices, keyword checks), and of course this vast repository of information about what we do on a day to day basis through websites, use of credit cards, etc.
This doesn't mean we are in a police state or that we necessarily will be in a police state, but I would argue that the barrier to entry is far lower than it used to be. That the tools available to do this are far more prevalent. That given the right chain of events, it's possible that all these tools of consumer convenience could be used against us. What if there was a major terrorist strike in this country that made 9/11 look minor by comparison? What new government powers would be requested and given? The government already has the ability to access most of the information I described above with minimal oversight, but they could take it further, creating a pervasive monitoring system that flags risky subjects.
So in the grand scheme, do I care if ITunes knows what music I listen to? No. But if I happen to listen to "George Bush Doesn't Like Black People" a bazillion times, I don't want it triggering some flag that launches a conversation between me and some somber gentleman in a dark suit that enjoys speaking in veiled threats.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Stop making this an abstract argument about someone sniffing your underpants, and get back to the meat of the article. It's about seeing what types of music you listen to and then marketing similar recommendations to you. Can someone tell me, with specific emphasis on the issue at hand, what the big fucking problem is? Oh, shit...they'll know I'm listening to old '80's bands! So. Um. They'll...try to sell me more of the same?
If someone were to tell me that Apple was devising a policy whereby people who listen predominantly to death metal were going to see MacBook prices 10% higher than those people that listen to Norah Jones, well then there'd be a problem. But what's the issue here?
Trust me: if you don't like that marketers are listening and trying to respond, you need to get over it. The spread of technology (databases particularly, but also the mature business intelligence systems that connect to them) means that every "real" business will be listening and reacting. It's time to expect more value from these activities, not cower in fear that they're happening. That's just ignorant.
Man, you guys are tripping me out...
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
Seriously, unless the data that is sent is associated with you, and stored in a database, then what is the problem?
How else would the feature work?
Winamp (IIRC) had a feature, enabled by default, that did pretty much the same, it clearly sent the current song's information to a server and dragged back relevant information for the author, including pictures and more.
I bet WMP and other media players do the same.
The issue is, as I said, are Apple storing your playlist, song by song, in a database with your AppleID? Seriously, if they wanted to do that, they'd just dump your playlist across the network and you wouldn't even know!
This isn't malware.
This isn't spyware, unless the information is used for a purpose that isn't recommending similar music in a mini-store panel.
I hadn't noticed the mini-store though, was it in the iTunes update? I'll have to take a look! Sounds useful.
1) "But you can turn it off!" - And here I thought it was about default settings and opt-in. Didn't we (users) already fight these battles with Windows Media Player and Real?
...
2) "But Amazon does it!" - In a browser, while online browsing on *their* servers. A child can see the difference.
3) "But it's useful!" - So, potentially, is any invasion of privacy. If they know everything about you, they can make your shopping experience *really* convenient!
4) "But Apple wouldn't use the info for bad purposes!" - The government wanted to access your bookstore receipts and library checkouts (in addition to monitoring your phonecalls and emails without warrants). I'm sure Apple will fight to the last cent before handing over one iota of info to the government
Every one of these points was made in a +5 moderated post. Think, moderators, think!
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
and what's supposed to be wrong with that?
Fact is they'll never see my face. Forget about 'building a personal relationship.'
And Apple, with 'bout 45 million iPods sold, isn't likely to see every customer either.
So they're mining their customer's music preferences. As long as they don't stop me (like Wal*Mart's censored music) from importing my 800+ CDs and 400+ vynil records, I don't care.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
anyone familiar with iTunes and bitching: why didn't you make such a huge fuss over the little arrows next to the artists/albums that link you to the music store?
they provide exactly the same function and are also enabled by default. however, whereas it took 2 clicks to disable the arrows it only takes 1 click to disable the ministore.
Would probably have a conniption fit if they walked into a bar and the bartender brought them "their usual" without being prompted. When it's a human, this is called "good customer service." Suddenly, when it's a computer, it is the root of all evil. As long as they keep it to themselves, sort of like the bartender not running up to your office and telling everyone you like to have fifteen martinis every wednesday night, I don't see the big deal.
Apple screwed up: this is unquestionably spyware, because it's not clear before you install that this is going on, it was slipped into a regular update, etc. I'm definitely a Maccy, but I won't serve as an apologist for this. It's wrong. Period.
That said, it doesn't appear to be malicious. It's very easily turned off and that doesn't seem to disable any function that isn't directly related. They're not hiding what they're doing as they do it.
I'd chalk this up to stupidity and poor communication. It doesn't seem like they were really trying to hide anything, just that they didn't think, "Hey, maybe I should be extra-specially-clear and disclose this." The tech people weren't talking to the marketing people; what a shock.
I'd hope for a quick mea culpa and clarification of the service. Perhaps, when you start the updated iTunes for the first time, a dialogue box could pop up and say, "Hi! Want me to tell the iTMS what song you're playing? Then I can make recommendations for you! [Yes] [No] [Bite me]"
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.
I can't RTFA because SOMEONE /.'d it.
...there is a company who tracks data about what you buy, and uses it to make recommendations on other things you might like? Holy Sh*t!!
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
I am with most of the other posters in wondering why the hell this is an issue at all.
I've been using iTunes for around 4 months, and I'm ALWAYS running through the "Just For You" section to get suggestions. I listen to clips, I check album ratings, and sometimes I buy whole albums or just a few songs. Sometimes I put a note in my iPod's notes section regarding an album I want to buy a hardcopy for (I don't have a clue why, and I'm not going to hurt myself trying to figure it out).
Bottom line, I've spent more on iTunes in the last 4 months than I've spent on music in the 4 years before that point. Why? Because I've found an obscene amount of music I never even knew I liked! How? iTunes' recommendations.
Still, what are they using this for? Are they tracking everything I listen to on my iPod? Do they know all the music in my library? I seriously doubt it. I like it that way too. When iTunes recommends something I already own the hardcopy to (typically already imported in my library), I tell them, and they use that info to recommend others. They don't know about the music I've borrowed (short term - I DON'T keep it if I don't like it, and I BUY it if I do - which has also lead to a lot more spending on my part).
Hell, I think it could only be better if they were to implement a wishlist I could dump to my iPods notes section so I could compare iTunes' prices with Strawberries' or Newbury Comics' used CD section.
So, sure iTunes IS bad, but only for my budget! It's done phenomenal things for my enjoyment of music, and that wouldn't be possible without actually using the information I GIVE it.
Just my $0.02, spend it or save it.
So they direct advertising likely to be of interest to you based on what you are currently playing. So what? You are going to see SOME kind of advertising. Why shouldn't it appeal to you? I get more bummed when I watch a football game and get the "All-Tel stat update" or the "AT&T First down line". People are WAY too concerned with "privacy" especially when it's usually the same people who brag to everybody in their 5th period study hall about how much they have downloaded.
I don't get the obsession some people here have with privacy. You act like your grocery list is a national secret. You buy cereal? Guess what, so do a hundred million other people! You like song X and someone else knows - who cares? What possible harm can they do to you by profiling your music taste?
It seems on the one side, people are having wet dreams about the digital home, when every appliance is connected to the internet, and knows what you want it to do, and services are customized to you. On the other side, every time something tracks some trivial piece of information about your life everyone here freaks out. Get over it. You aren't important, and if you think you or your data are anything but a statistic you are deluding yourself. They aren't tracking anything but commercial data, and I would rather see ads for something I may be interested in rather than online dating services, casinos, and viagra. STFU already.
This new feature puts up a little pane in the iTunes window that shows songs related to the song you are currently playing. There is no indication that I can find that the iTunes Music Store is actually storing that information. It's unlikely that Apple could store that kind of volume of information, given that it happens on selection, not on playing.
But I don't think people should worry. You can simply press one button and iTunes stops doing it (the disclosure button on the left side of the bottom button bar). It's pretty simple to verify that your computer isn't sending any data on track selection or play when that window is not added, so in general you only get this information when you ask for it. Further, all it has to go on are the identifying tags in the music, and these can be easily changed, so it's not something that could ever hold up in any sane court if someone came at you with a lawsuit. Then again, sanity doesn't seem to be a prerequisite these days, so our milage may vary.
Don't get me wrong, I am not to happy about this feature because it's effectively embedding ads in iTunes. They're pretty well targeted, but they're ads. Still, the article seemed to overreact to what iTunes is doing.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
I've gone to the iTunes music store and never seen anything I would want to buy on the front page. If they are looking at my preferences there should be a lot more Heavy Metal and a lot less Usher and Shikira.
My guess is I have to start grading the music on the iPod for this to effect my choices on iTunes. If so its an option in sort of thing. If not its so off the mark as to be harmless.
I also think that if they had some kind of database going they'd at least send my weekly iTunes email update with a little more customization as well. I've never owned Shikira or Usher so why am I bombarded unless that is just the product they are pushing at the time regardless of user preferences.
the terms "opt-in" and "opt-out" are way out of proportion here. this isn't some obscure setting or (de-)registration procedure. it's a single click of the mouse to close a window.
if you really want to bitch about nothing then here's a far better one: Firefox has cookies enabled by default and sets your homepage to one of theirs on first run - THEY COULD BE SPYING ON EVERYTHING YOU EVAR DO ON TEH INTERPOWER COMPUTERWEB!
'nuff said
I guess the line is blurry here. most people are resigned to the fact that amazon, grocery stores, and credit card companies have a lot of info on what you order, as well as many others. they then use this information for markting data to recommend/advertise products to you or figure out what they should carry. it can actually be kind of handy despite privacy concerns. but itunes is installed on your computer, even though it connects to a store. now if it only collects data based on purchases from itms, then it is no better/worse than what other retailers do. now if it were to do it based on your own songs when u just use itunes as a media player, then that crosses into another territory. it becomes like a program which analyzes what site you go to and then suggests other sites to go to. having the portal to the store right on your computer makes it hard to seperate.
1) "But you can turn it off!" - And here I thought it was about default settings and opt-in. Didn't we (users) already fight these battles with Windows Media Player and Real?
It's not like it scans your entire library the moment you launch iTunes.
The matter is you can turn it off before it DOES ANYTHING.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
The US government is illegaly spying on its Citizens, and yet they worry that *iTunes* may be an invasion of privacy? Please get your priorities straight...
along with OS X 10.4.4 (which works great,) and QuickTime (which I didn't want so didn't get, because I'd need (have to buy) a new "QuickTime Pro" key.)
Personally I'm going through my collection seeing how often its stumped by my, uh, rather strange collection.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Under the hood iTunes is a web browser...
How is this any different than visiting amazon.com and having suggestions made based on what you are browsing for?
"A convenient feature, perhaps, but it raises concerns over privacy."
No it doesn't.
And if you feel it does, don't use it.
Whenever you buy a song you do like, just buy 10 more of varying tastes and styles that you have absolutely no interest in. That'll make their user preference database just about useless.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Sorry but have I missed something? If you'd watched the Steve Jobs keynote (don't remeber which though so I must apologise) he basically said exactly what is being 'reported' in these blogs.. iTunes watches what music you buy the most, and then lists things it feels might interest you! SO WHAT!
For gods sake - its not like its some kind of secret! And its not like Apple are the only company doing this? Amazon has done it for as long as I remeber?
And who cares, honestly? Embarassed that your work collegues or friends will see all the Hentai videos and Weird Al albums you've been buying?!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
No firewall is needed.
Step 1: Click the "close mini store" button in iTunes
Step 2: There is no step 2.
Once this is done, no info is sent to Apple. I've verified this with Little Snitch.
People are making such a big friggin deal about this *optional* feature...and I, for one, like this feature.
You buy something. The store tracks your purchases to recommend similar stuff. Amazon does it. Other stores do it. So what's the big deal w/ iTunes doing it? It can't just because instead of having a web interface like traditional stores it has it's own software interface? Another thing that isn't clear. Is this just doing this for music bought through iTunes (which seems ok), or all music, including all your illegally obtained mp3's in it (which is kinda iffie)? If just bought music, it seems no different then amazon. And not to mention nielson ratings. Every single thing you watch on TV someone probably knows about (although anonomous).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
1) "But you can turn it off!" - Authors can opt-out, but Google is evil since it should be an opt-in system.
2) "But Amazon does it!" - Amazon shows pages out of books, but their system is different so it's OK.
There are three things to be learned here.
- Slashdot(and people in general) turn arguments around to favor the outcome they desire. Apple and Google are popular, so excuses are made for them when they do something questionable. Microsoft is unpopular, so the same arguments are used to condemn their questional behavior.
- People aren't really concerned about their privacy, especially when it's about mundane things like grocery shopping or music preferences. What, the government is going to come after me because I downloaded Black Flag or the Sex Pistols? Maybe if I download Tupac and 50 Cent? All of the Coldplay, U2, Mariah Carey drones out there don't care. Nobody's going to come after them for their mainstream boring tastes.
- If you don't do business with these big evil companies they can't keep data on you. Apple doesn't have any idea what I like to listen to. Know why? Because I've NEVER purchased a song from them. Big companies are going to do everything they can to sell you more stuff, ethical or not. If you do business with them and give the information they can identify you with, they are going to track it.
One last thing. In response to your final item concerning the government monitoring phonecalls, email, checking bookstore receipts and library checkouts. That's what we should be worried about. Companies like Apple have little interest in persecuting individuals. Our government, OTOH, does like individual persecution and harrassment. Fortunately our constitution was designed to shelter us from such government infringements on our rights. Let's worry less about corporate America spying on us focus on stopping the government from becoming Big Brother.Find coupons in Greeley
For those of you who didn't RTFA or missed what this is all about, the latest update in iTunes added a 1" advertisizing bar in the playlist windows that is easily closed.
THIS IS NOT THE "RECOMMENDED FOR YOU" WINDOW IN THE MUSIC STORE. This is a new bar which appeared prominently in a playlist window by default after the latest update. THIS IS NOT HIDDEN TRACKING. THIS IS A CLOSABLE AD.
The mini-store bar is very obvious. It is annoying that it appears at all, but can be turned off easily (click the close/hide button) just like the album artwork. The mini-store is not subtle. It very clearly is showing songs in iTMS that match whatever song you just selected in iTunes, like other songs by that artist, and such. It does not appear to suggest songs based on my previous purchases. It looks just like the iTMS store (when you get to actual tracks), but at the bottom of *your* playlist instead of going through the usual iTMS clicks.
According to the reports, sniffing the traffic shows that if you close the mini-store window, it does not bother to send any hits/requests/info back to Apple. Presumably because you wouldn't see the results anyway. If Apple is sending my uniqueid along with my selection clicks, this would be somewhat more of a privacy issue.
I am annoyed by the new "feature" since I hate advertising. But I don't see it as a serious breach of privacy, except that a little popup explaining the new feature and what it does would have been greatly appreciated. It's only a little different from clicking on tracks in the iTMS in that it appears in playlists.
Adware? Sure. Spyware? No. Annoying? Yes, for five seconds, until you click the hide button.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
You're absolutely right. Hey, kids, guess what? Every web server you visit is logging your IP address in their server logs! My god! Even what browser and OS you're using!
iTunes recommending music based on your purchases isn't "malware." If iTunes was actually being malicious, THAT would be malware. All it's doing is recommending albums. What an inflammatory headline to generate page hits. People need to read the definition of what malware actually is.
"Sufferin' succotash."
such things are OK as long as it is not Microsoft who is doing it?
Clearly, Google is the next Microsoft.
Look, there's real violations of privacy out there, real secret malware, real opportunities for corporations and individuals to get information you'd rather keep private. But yelling about things like this just makes it more difficult to point out the real problems.
It's obvious it's happening the first time you use it. Turn off the ministore and it stops.
Now let's talk about some real problems out there...
Should we really have expected otherwise? What I want to know [and hope to find out by reading replies to this story] is how I can control or use this knowledge to my advantage, and prevent others from using it for purposes which I do not approve.
@iTMS scroll down, click, read.
Furthermore, I recall seeing some disclaimer about anonymous data being sent when running softwareupdate around the time 6.0 and the "Just for You" feature came out or maybe Jobs mentioned it at the release. Didn't see anything specific in the Windows install. At least Apple tells you why these things are being recommended (e.g. "you bought X, we recommend Y"). Probably leaving room for "you listen to A, we recommend B". Plus, you can disable "Just for You".
Malware? Come on. It only reports back on itself, it's not spying on anything else in your computer...
for bands that are looking for exposure, not profits.
.shn (Shorten) lossless codecs.
I aggree that a cheap-per-song service is needed, but until then, I support lowpro bands via....... its been mentioned before, i'll mention it again: CD Baby, baby.
not at $.25 or $.50 but inexpensive, and in the spirit of the artist.
I have no affiliation with the site, but they do good things for the artists, and have sent me "extra" CDs with tunes from other obscure artists that fit the genres of the CDs I ordered.
another great way to support bands, and to support good use of P2P apps, is Furthur Network I have used this for years, and love it (killer Talking Heads shows!). It only trades live music, and with bands that have given Furthur Net approval to do so. Most of the stuff I trade is lossless, as is most of the music in the network, either FLAC or
|plastic....or gasoline?|
I'm an avid user of Firefox and use an extension called StumbleUpon. This recommends sites based on a list of preferences I filled out upon sigining up for an account. Through this, I found the website www.pandora.com which recommends music based on artists and songs that I enter into it and allows me to have a customized "radio station" with my favorite type of music all the time. This was exactly what I've been looking for, since I love music of many kinds and am always looking for new and different stuff. (BTW: I also highly recommend www.ampcast.com for this purpose) If software I installed used this technique to market ads to me I wouldn't mind too much. At least they wouldn't be ads for stuff I am totally uninterested in. I'm no big fan of adware, but I believe iTunes may fall under a grey area, since it is a sort of marketing/ecommerce software to begin with. Also, I am not a user of iTunes, so I'm trying to stay on the general concept of the whole thing.
It recommended Justin Timberlake.
'Nuff said
Don't you mean *Nuff said?
Bye Bye Bye!
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
This is a direct quote from the website:
(Flash required)
"This calculator allows you to determine what your data bits are worth on the open market so you can request proper compensation when it is asked from you. For instance, a typical cellular phone company will ask for your address, date of birth, phone number, Social Security number and driver's license to open a new account. Consult our data calculator and that will be $13.75 please!
Refer to this calculator when you interact with all businesses and goverment agencies. Make sure you get a cut of the profits from the reselling of your information. (A downloadable data calculator for Pocket PCs is on the way.)
We used the following sources to determine the worth of your individual data bits: Accurint, Aristotle, ChoicePoint, ChoiceTrust, DocuSearch, Experian, KnowX, Merlin Data, and Pallorium. There are many other commercial data warehouses in the U.S., but these are some of the most popular and represent the general types of information that are for sale."
For those who don't know: The iTunes EULA is outrageously broad, and basically grants permission to Apple and several other companies to do anything they damn well please - including re-writing the entire EULA without notification or consent.
/. foes list) for pointing out that I, personally, am unwilling to enter such an open-ended contract.
That's why my mac has no iTunes. That's why the corporation I work for does not allow versions of Quicktime that include iTunes.
Incidentally, I've been roundly flamed (and even made people's
Perhaps I have blasphemed the mac religion by reading an Apple EULA. I fully expect this post to be modded troll and flamebait, although it is intended as neither.
How come this news gets people up in arms yet no one seemed to complain when apple made it so some of their iPods wouldn't work with Rhapsody, Yahoo, Napster and similar services? Finding a way to make a buck at the expense of consumer's freedom is as American as apple pie and as Apple is becoming more and more mainstream I'd expect these sorts of things to happen more frequently.
As Forest Gump would say, "Big buisness is as Big Buisness Does"...
... since they started packaging it with the QuickTime installer. How underhanded do you have to be to force another program to install with a free viewer?
I really wish people would relax a little regarding things like this. The same complaints are raised about "cookies". In the end, these same people complain about ads and other things that cookies would help make less annoying (by being targetted and relevant). They want their free cake and to eat it too.
The fact is you're gonna have advertising on websites. You're gonna have it in other applications like iTunes. Now, you can either complain that sites are full of irrelevant ads you don't care about, or you can tolerate this kind of "reporting" which results in ads that ARE relevant to you.
Hell, if you call it the "Pandora Music Genome" project, all of a sudden everyone is "ok" with it. But guess what? Same shit, different pile. Pandora records what you listen to (AND your preferences, AND whether you skip a tune or not, etc) but people hail it as this great alternative to radio because it [attempts] to deliver music to your tastes. iTunes does the same kind of data collection and all of a sudden it's "malware".
So long as we can opt out, I say it's fine. But the problem with that is that those same people who opt out because they are paranoid that their listening preferences will somehow empty their bank accounts, are the same people that will then complain that they hate the irrelevant advertising. Maybe if you didnt opt out, they could target ads that won't annoy you so much.
I get the same problem on my own website. I run pop-unders. ONE appears per person on the whole site. No others appear within a 12 hours period. But guess what happens to those idiots who turn off ALL cookies? That's right. They get the pop-under every page, every visit. They shoot themselves in the foot by being so paranoid. (Who cares if an advertiser knows your screen resolution? Isn't it a fair trade in exchange for you not getting the pop-under every page?!?!)
1) "But you can turn it off!" - Authors can opt-out, but Google is evil since it should be an opt-in system.
What!?! So there is no qualitative difference between employing the fair use clauses of copyright law, and software that calls home? To say one should be opt in and one should be opt out is in no way inconsistent. I think military service should be opt in. I think hot sauce on tacos at the mexican place should be opt-out. So what? They are completely different things.
Slashdot(and people in general) turn arguments around to favor the outcome they desire. Apple and Google are popular, so excuses are made for them when they do something questionable.
Or maybe people form opinions based upon facts and then express those opinions, even when in some cases they think something is appropriate and in others they don't. I think people should be allowed to play loud music in parks. I don't think people should be allowed to play loud music in hospitals. Why is it so hard to understand that these beliefs are not contradictory or hypocritical. I heard no one making excuses for Apple. I did hear a lot of people say they are not worried about Apple will do. This is called trust. It is something people and companies earn by behaving ethically and used to be very important to both businesses and individuals.
Microsoft is unpopular, so the same arguments are used to condemn their questional behavior.
If you read all the comments above, very few people agree Apple should be doing what they are doing. The only difference is that when there is a question as to what is being done, people are more likely to trust Apple. This is because Apple, unlike MS, has not been screwing them over and behaving unethically on a daily basis. To make judgments without looking at the history of the participants is illogical, not the other way around.
While Apple does have a new feature offering a free weekly download of an up and coming artist, I agree with you that their focus is on big names, or new musicians promoted by big-name labels. But don't despair, grasshopper...
what you dream of exists on CNET Downloads. Under Home Entertainment, CNET offers an amazing variety of streaming and/or downloadable music from new artists, dead legends, local garage bands, international favorites, independent labels, and yes, even a few famous american musicians... Dwight Yokum & Allison Krause are among the handful of household names that popped up on a recent visit.
Mostly, it's a great place to discover new artists, even new genres.
Scroll through the artists by genre or popularity - when you see one that catches your interest, you can click to an album page, where you can listen to samples, stream a whole song if it catches your interest, and in many cases download a free mp3 of one or more songs from the featured album.
This is not the place to find lots of free and legal downloads of popular artists, but rather a nice venue for the smaller names and labels to exhibit their work and offer you a free sample of what may one day be the next big thing... or may always remain a quirky, unusual secret among a few diehard fans in the know.
Caveat: MP3s only. But no worries - if you insist on lossless formats, you can use this site to discover new artists, and then follow the links to purchase their CDs. Some of these songs may even already be on iTunes - just not promoted there.
Why am I doing this? Now one of my all-time favorite sites will be slashdotted for days...
In this day and age most savvy users are subscribing to and purposely running applications that track their music and suggest new artists, friends and interests. Last.fm? del.icio.us? Are these not useful, positive tools?
If iTunes is "malware" for tracking preferences, certainly the latest wave of social software must be the worst kind of malware - some sort of "mega-malware", if you will. They not only track your preferences, but attach it to your username and then share it with anyone who knows how to operate a browser. *gasp!*
We must stop this malicious software from helping us!
The button is the fourth from the right at the bottom of the iTunes window. It turns off the Mini Store.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Actually, as far as I understand, the service only keeps track of what music you purchased, which Apple already has records of anyway. You can also tell it voluntarily if an album it recommends fits your tastes or not, by indicating if you already own an album not purchased through iTMS.
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Honestly, people get WAY too worked up over privacy sometimes. A service that tracks info about what I like is a good thing - that means companies are more able to recommend things to me that I am actually going to like, rather then complete crap I neither want nor need.
It's good for companies because they can figure out if offing me something is or is not wasting my time (companies only want to sell what people want to buy.) And it's good for me because I can get introduced to me stuff I probably would like, but didn't know anything about. It's like google's adsense. You're much more likely to click because the ads are based on the content you're already reading- which you wouldn't be reading if you weren't already interested in it. It's a "Would you like to know more?" sort of thing.
To me, it comes down to time. Companies have endless time to figure out new ways of collecting info from me. Yet I don't have endless time to counteract their actions. Since the stuff is going to happen ANYWAY, there is no point in me getting all worked up over it. Write a letter to your congressmen/woman, and move on with your life.
It's not really the collecting of data that I think upsets people. People get upset with what companies might DO with that data. But really, what's the worst that can come out of that?
(A) Identity theft? --Ok, that's probably the worst. More data = bigger chance.
(B) More ads? --That happens anyway.
(C) The Media puts your "bad deeds" on the 10 o'clock news? --Only would happen if you're famous, and by that point, you better be able to deal with people who don't like you or are trying to dig up dirt on you to make you look bad.
(D) Company mis-mananges your info and a "bad person" gets it? Only bad if they try to do (A) with it.
Really, that's pretty much it. So why people get upset about companies collecting info on them, I have no idea. It has and continues to be something that's not worth worrying about.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist like many (most?) /. folks. Believe it or not, when you're willing to share some personal information (by opting in), companies can provide you with better services. Some would argue that if Apple can recommend songs that you might be interested in based on music you already listen then you're getting some value. Many of you probably have Tivo. Tivo recommends shows that Tivo thinks you might like based on what you record. Some might hate it or think their recommendations are lame but others might discover shows that they actually like.
:)
The problem here is that Apple appears to have an "opt out" approach where they use the information UNLESS you disable certain functions. Microsoft, on the other hand, defaults to NOT collecting any information. You have to "opt in." To confirm this I just re-installed Windows Media Player 10. During the installation process I see the following:
1. Long/onerous EULA
2. Fairly long installation process..
3. A very clear screen where I set my privacy options with "Send unique player ID to content providers" unchecked. The "Customer Experience Improvement Program" check box - which sends player usage datea to Microsoft - is also unchecked. This UI also has a prominent link to "More information about your privacy options" that spells it all out very clearly.
Perhaps Apple can in fact learn a few things from Microsoft?
I don't know about this. I know they track your purchases and make recommendations based on them. But, I do not think that they track what's on your computer. There's a big difference between what I buy at the iTunes store and what I rip from CDs. I have never recieved a recommendation from iTunes that could be related to my ripped music.
Apple uses the same strategy the Republicans use to counter this kind of finding: ignore it and don't even give credence to or acknowledge it, whatsoever. If you don't like it that's your problem.
It works on all us dummies. Somehow.
Grocery stores can, and DO, track individual purchases. Recently, a fire fighter was suspected in an arson because his card had shown as purchasing the accelerant used in the fire. It wasn't until someone else confessed that he was cleared. The DEA has subpoenaed records looking for people purchasing large numbers of baggies. A large grocery store, in the aftermath of 9/11, turned over to the FBI their entire loyalty database of purchases and purchasers, without so much as a subpoena, to "help find and fight terrorists."
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
I've had last.fm's AudioScrobbler client (iScrobbler) running on my Mac for ages now. It feeds info on the songs I listen to into their web site, where there's a database and all that. I get recommendations, and so forth. Looks like the new iTunes functionality is basically identical to that, except that now it's integrated with the iTunes store...
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
At the risk of oversimplifying a solution, how about this:
If you're concerned that iTMS may be phoning home, don't let it through your firewall.
On my Windows laptop, ZoneAlarm Pro always pops up that Windows Media Player is trying to connect to the Internet. I click the "deny" button and continue on my merry way.
I haven't thought about iTMS on my OS X machines, but I may look into it some.
Is this a "too simple" solution?
You may think that firewalling it off doesn't solve the problem, it merely puts a band-aid over the problem, but consider this: how much did you pay for the iTunes software? Nothing? It was a freebie? No, there's a cost to it. You get to use iTunes even if you don't use iTMS, and you "pay" for it with your music preference info.
Am I missing something more complex or something more simple?
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I think this about nearly every single "privacy issue". Big deal!
It's a big world. No one cares about you, an individual. There's not going to be any article in the paper listing and ridiculing your preferences. Unless you're a celebrity, it's simply not news that anyone else cares about.
So don't sweat it.
...doesnt mean they ARENT watching you.
Dont like your tastes tracked? Easy. Buy everything in brick and mortar, and pay cash.
I love how people think they are more important/influential than they really are.
So they know what your tastes are. Big Deal!
Guys, would you rather they start advertising things at random including O.B., Massengil, and other girly things?
Women, would you rather they start pushing things like jock itch cream and 4x4 truck parts?
We are already having our time wasted by advertising; I actually like (the theory) that its not a COMPLETE waste of my time because its not as likely I'll be seeing advertising for stuff I have ABSOLUTELY no interest in. Its bad enough they bug me about stuff I MIGHT buy.
TV already does that... they advertise based on the demographics of the viewers... guy stuff on spikeTV, girly ads on Lifetime.
And besides, if you are that sensitive/embarrased, maybe you shouldnt be doing whatever it is you are doing that you dont want others to know about.
When you install WMP, by default it does NOT collect any user information. You have to "Opt in."
don't visit the iTunes store. i don't. i merely use iTunes to rip my cd's 'cause its reliable, and has a decent GUI for fixing id3 tags set by crappy entries in cddb.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
How many people think that this is "A Bad Thing(tm)", and yet continue to use AudioScrobbler? ;-)
I can search the Music Store for more music by an artist I already own in the store on my own so how is this not adware? Its unsolicited.
My karma is getting better everyday.
Jesus Christ, you dolts. How did you think iTunes tells you what you might like? Tarot cards?
What!?! So there is no qualitative difference between employing the fair use clauses of copyright law, and software that calls home?
There is a huge difference, but it's difficult to say which one is more evil. Google is 'employing the fair use clauses of copyright law' as they interpret them. This hasn't been proven in court and there may actually be illegal activity here. iTunes is distributing a software product that people use voluntarily and added a new 'feature' that sends information about your listening habits to Apple to better serve you. IMHO, iTunes users 'opted-in' when they installed the software. I'm sure there's an EULA with a phrase buried in it that gives Apple perfect right to do what they are doing. If not, I'm sure someone will start a lawsuit.
Why is it so hard to understand that these beliefs are not contradictory or hypocritical.
It's not hard to understand, and I believe that sometimes this is true. People often do create opinions based on facts, and you are absolutely right that some behavior is appropriate on one context and inappropriate in the next.
You must also admit that the opposite is true. Many people trust blindly and then apply arguments to validate their feelings. Why do people 'trust' Apple? Are they a particularly trustworthy company? I can't think of anything they've ever done that would incline me to give them my trust. Actually I think their CEO is probably as rutheless as his counterpart at Microsoft. Jobs is just smart enough not to piss off his customer base, and of course has not had any type of monopoly until now. People trust Apple because they produce designer, feel good products, have a good corporate image and have not had many big PR fiascos. That's not a good enough reason for me to trust them.'
This is because Apple, unlike MS, has not been screwing them over and behaving unethically on a daily basis.
This will be a good test to see if people can trust Apple. I'm guessing this 'feature' will dissappear in the next release of iTunes because Apple, in general, appears to believe that trust and behaving ethically is important to business. It will be interesting to see if this is actually true, or if they are just another shareholder minded business with a hippy paintjob.
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--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
It seems to me people are confused. First they complain that the advertising they receive is irrelevant and possibly offensive. Then they complain that a company they frequent is now advertising to them in a specific, relevant manner, but since said company is using purchase history, that's a bad thing. Which do we want, relevant advertisements that may pique our interest at the cost that a company mines our purchase history or annoying advertisements that we could care less about and keep our data "private"?
It's a single click to disable *if you know about it*. Did *you* know that while that window is open, your usage is being tracked by Apple? Did Apple disclose this connection in an obvious way?
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
There is a problem here in that we don't know for sure if this is even true. We only have some blogger's suspicion that this is some "privacy violation". Sorry, but blogger conspiricy theories are not news or newsworthy.
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
... I'm in trouble now. My listening habits are going to be sniffed (if I fail to close the Ministore window, which took about 5 seconds to figure out). Someone, somewhere is going to notice I listen to 50 Cent and Enya in the same sitting. Soon, I'll be deluged with spam advertising medications for bipolar syndrome, G-Unit hoodies, and Irish castle tours. Oh, the horror ...
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
But, so does Amazon.
This doesn't mean that they are monitoring your library of songs. They aren't sending this information back to their servers either.
After seeing this huge misrepresentation of the truth I put up a packet sniffer on my machine and the article is just plain wrong. Who writes this crap anyhow?
Apple isn't the only one who tracks your music! Whoa! If you install the Audioscrobbler plugin and run it, it sends information about all the songs you play and lets ANYONE on the Internet see what you're listing to! OMG! That's exactly what it's supposed to do!
Malware. Bah. People are really reaching.
going even further off topic, but...
last I checked it only set the home page if you checked the box 'set my homepage' in the installer... otherwise it just takes you to a Firefox page the first time it loads (maybe you want some extensions?), and leaves your home setting alone
as for cookies, eh. it would be a lot harder for a beginner to enable cookies than it is for an experienced person with security concerns to disable them
A guilty conscience means at least you've got one.
When you buy a burger and Coke at McDonalds, they look at your purchase and say, "You want fries with that?"
That's all ITMS is doing... They just want to be able to say, "You want a Barry Manilow tune with that?"
You know, it sounds suspiciously like the features of last.fm, which collects data on your listening habits, then reports back to its servers, and recommends new things to listen to. The killer here is that using those data it queues up a streaming audio player that plays music similar to the stuff you listen to anyway.
Actually, I rather like this feature on last.fm, and I don't particularly mind broadcasting the type of music/audio I'm listening to at any given moment. The "neighbour radio" (last.fm's term for it) is the best part--it lets me tune out my cubemate's preference for '80s soft rock.
Would you like iTunes to track your listening preferences and recommend additional music other users with similar tastes to your own have enjoyed. Warning: This will require sending of the following data back to Apple servers. View our Privacy Policy here.
And this option should initially be unchecked. Then there never would have been a problem in the first place. Why don't companies realize they can just be open about a lot of this stuff?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Oh, come on, people. Your bank knows more about you than your mother does. If you're worried about this little iTunes thing, than you have no idea just how much information is already available about you out there.
All those Air Miles cards out there are data tracking sytems, tracking EVERYTHING you buy with that card. You have no say over who gets this information. Everything you buy with a credit card was tracked already, but now it's been centralized.
If someone wants it, they can get your credit history, estimated net worth, educational records, a fairly large chunk of your medical history, and the record of everywhere you've ever lived or ever worked. Financial institutions have all of this, now. You can't get a mortgage or insurance without telling them most of this--in fact, much of the bank's due dilligence in giving you a large loan is in compiling a dossier on you. They're not really required to be too careful about who they hand it out to, either. Nor are they required to tell you everything they know. Soon they'll know what you like and don't like, if they don't already. They will be able to build a fairly accurate profile of your personality. And they will sell this information to whoever asks, at a pretty cheap price.
All of this privacy paranoia is such a joke. I particularly find it funny when people get paranoid about the government. The CIA can barely remember where they left their keys, but your bank is another matter entirely. You haven't had any privacy for decades. Most of you have never lived in a world where privacy existed. If you thought it did exist, you simply didn't know who was gathering the information. And if you think iTunes is a major threat, you are mind-bogglingly naive.
Telling Apple what I listen to? HEAVEN FORBID IT!
Is it just me or are a lot of people hypersensitive to issues like this? Who cares if Apple knows my playlist? To their servers, I'm just another consumer, they don't have the time/will to sit there and read incoming data, "HEHE, THAT GUY LISTENS TO MICHELLE BRANCH."
Seriously now. There are issues far greater than this that should be stressed.
It isn't really about scale at all. There is nothing stopping a Mom and Pop operation from aggregating their data and selling it to other companies, larger or smaller in addition to using it for sending you their newsletter or special offers. The difference is that people are somewhat irrationally assuming that certain types of contact are more trustworthy than others and frankly rather arbitrarily assigning value to the "privacy" of certain information in certain situations when they freely give out MUCH more sensitive information in others.
Using the same analogy, you go to a bar, hand your keys to a valet and your ID to a doorman who may even electronically scan it for validity. Those two people now have your address, your keys (probably house keys too) and your car, and can easily cross-reference your spending habits, electronically or just by watching. Hell, they may even have your coat at this point. You then open a tab and hand over your credit card to a third person who holds it for several hours while someone puts on your coat, gets in your car, drives to your house (totally unnoticed since they're now practically indistinguishable from you), cleans you out and goes on an online spending spree from your home computer with your credit card, making for a very embarassing exchange when you scream at your credit card company and they call your ISP, confirming the charges were made in your own living room.
There are innumerable situations like that and worse that people just blithely stumble through assuming the trust of complete strangers, but oh no, someone knows you bought a Ute Lemper CD and Englebert Humperdink poster and THAT'S the scary breach of privacy.
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2006/01/mi nistore/index.php?lsrc=mwrss
(I'm not happy about this being the default, it's not the normal "do the right/safe thing by default" that has been Apple's basic rule for features...)
dave
Tracking what you like and recommending more of what you like qualifies as "malware"? Really? While I agree it would be better to have somewhere in the Preferenes for ITunes that you can turn this off I think calling it "malware" is a bit of a stretch.
I am worried that the DRM information is sent by iTunes and stored by Apple. Reports on DRM'ed music as a percentage of the total library over time would be an interesting metric to produce to the record companies. Also, what is to stop the RIAA from compelling Apple to produce lists of users (with IP addresses) and the contents of their library? I don't want to have to defend myself against the RIAA and find out that half of their case against me is build on information I provided to iTunes as a result of my owning an iPod.
My $0.02...
1) "But you can turn it off!" - And here I thought it was about default settings and opt-in. Didn't we (users) already fight these battles with Windows Media Player and Real?
Yes, that's right, because Apple's hidden this 'feature' somewhere where the average user won't find it. There is a hidden option to turn it off, but what user is honestly going to stumble across that, even when they're looking for it?
Let's be realistic. It's pretty much impossible to notice this 'mini-store', especially on a resolution like mine, and everyone *I* know reacted the same as I did when I saw it - 'how do I turn it off?' For people with actual disposable income, this might actually be a great bonus.
I think that most people will tend to turn this off pretty fast, as it's not exactly subtle, and it takes up a significant amount of real estate. Anyone who doesn't explicitly want this is going to turn it off pretty fast. Compare this to RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, that have a small checkbox on an innocuous preferences page, which is the only way anyone would ever know (other than reading overblown sensationalism on Slashdot).
Can we be realistic, just for once? Please?
Are you kidding me with all this outrage? It's a (new) function of the software. You click on a song and it offers suggestions for other tracks you might like to buy from the iTMS (or acquire from other sources). It doesn't secretly send info on each song in your collection or each song that you play. It's a music recomendation service, how do you expect it to work?
It's not Malware or spyware. At worst it's adware and you can turn it off if you want to use it (hell you can disable the iTMS in iTunes completely). Complaining about this is like complaining that Firefox sends your IP address to all the sites you visit.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
It's called targeted advertising. Apple is neither the first to do this, nor the or the worst.
BFD.
But the article, needlessly hysterical as it is, caters to the Slashdot Mentality (TM) so neatly that it couldn't help but get posted.
Again, BFD.
So to recap: OMG! Apple is teh ev1l for tracking your d0wnloadz0rs. Too bad they already have your name, address, and credit card number from when you signed up. And it even if they DIDN'T actively track your downloads to (gasp) possibly turn you on to other things you may like in order to (gasp) make money, they'd already know what you were up to anyway because YOU'VE BEEN PAYING MONEY TO DOWNLOAD THEIR CONTENT FROM THEIR SERVERS VIA THEIR SOFTWARE, you idiots.
I just checked out amaroK for the second time last night. Hated it a year ago, but they've made great strides since and I must say I'm quite impressed.
Anyway, I just felt like mentioning that amaroK has this same song suggestion feature, but it's off by default and you have to sign up with a third party (last.fm) in order to use it.
...it will be too late to complain.
Consider: The record industry is looking for ways to justify multi-tier pricing, where some songs cost 75 cents, and other songs cost $2, or $3. What better way to justify that than to say, "People really play <this> song more than <that> song, so we deserve much more money for it!". I would actually be happy to do that, if I thought that the artist would get the extra money, but I'm pretty sure any extra money will magically vaporize somewhere in the record labels. "overhead", or "promotional copies" or something.
Consider: If I understand this right, they are tracking what songs you play. Not what songs you buy from them, but what songs you play from anywhere you obtained it. First off, if the song is not one that you bought from them, then how can they tell what you're playing? From the artist name and song title that you typed in? Geez, people can't even get consistent data into the gracenote database (which is why I still avoid that), so just how accurate is the data going to be when the names are based on what a million different people type in? For that matter, I rename some of the songs I do buy from iTMS, because they even they don't name things completely consistently (although they do better than Gracenote).
Consider: Let's say the RIAA feeds certain songs into the file-sharing networks, which have unique markers in them (either spellings of artist names, or MD5 digests of the song, or something). Then they come knocking on Apple's door saying "Have you noticed anyone playing <this> song? And you can tie that playing to a specific authenticated user? Hey, that's Great!".
Consider: Let's say the government finds out that "terrorists" really like to play "Desert Rose" from Sting. Or they want to know everyone who listens to the podcasts from Al Franken. Gee, maybe Apple would know. Once there is a database, then who knows what "interesting" things someone might want to find out from mining that data...
I don't know if any of these are going to happen, but the thing is that we won't know the downside until we see it. And all of this is for what? So they can recommend more songs for us to buy? They do an awful job with the "Just for You" recommendations as it is. I don't need someone tracking down more songs for me to buy -- particularly not the person who directly profits from me buying stuff. Real live human beings have a tough-enough time agreeing on what which albums are good, even if they agree on an artists they like. Anything the store recommends is still going to be nothing more than a random guess. The "up-side" of this is extremely insignificant. If you want to find more interesting music to listen to, then search for it yourself. You can spend months on amazon reading reviews (both pro and con) from real live people who have bought a variety of albums, and get a much better idea of what music to try than you'll get from database-mining and a 30-second snippet of some song.
disclaimers: a) in general, I like Apple. I like MacOS much more than Windows. I own four ipods. I buy songs from iTMS (not a lot but some). b) I think Sony should be completely boycotted for their recent DRM fiasco. c) I think it's hysterical that Microsoft claims people should hate iPods because they "lock you into" a single vendor. d) I prefer to buy CD's over digital downloads, and my iTunes music collection is about 99% songs ripped from legit CD's that I personally bought.
I mean, I have hung out at more than a few bars where I've gotten to know the staff, and they've gotten to know my tastes. The question I ask then is should these people be informing me that they have used my observed preferences when they tell me I might like a new beer or that I ought to try a new gin?
If something is useful and only marginally invasive, is it really that bad? People like to harp about how they gurad their privacy, but I bet every single one of us has signed up for some kind of service that traacks something about us. Netflix comes to mind, the fob you use to get 2-for-1 on Pop-Tarts at the Piggly Wiggly, your frequent flier account, your Starbucks card, that pron website that you subscribe to, they all track information that we voluntarily give.
I have a problem when a company takes my info and sells it to someone else, and then that 3rd party starts offering me stuff. I don't have much of an issue with a company that is taking information that I VOLUNTEER and using to market their products to me. iTunes is free software, like a lot of other software, it is going to seek to use ads. Doesn't Opera use ads to support itself, at least in one version. Do the ads track to your browsing habits? Do you know that they don't?
Now shut up and read wikipedia on what malware really is.
Think of it as having some hidden Easter Eggs or a game.
Perhaps It'll come back with something interesting if you listen to things like Joe Wecker - DeCSS Song or Wierd Al Yakovic - Windows 95 Sucks
Could anyone else care about what you listen to?
If your collection is really Da BOMB, it'll include
JJ Walker - DYNOMITE!
Simon and Garfunkle BRIDGE Over Troubled Water
Moody Blues - TUESDAY AFTERNOON
The Vogues - FIVE O'CLOCK World
besides, I want everybody to know what legal music I like. skew the purchase of additional rights, that kind of stuff. Apple didn't hide nothing.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
last I checked it only set the home page if you checked the box 'set my homepage' in the installer...
That used to be checked by default; it changed sometime around 1.0.5 or so. You wouldn't believe the number of times I forgot to change it...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Well I'm glad you are happy but this is exactly the kind of thing that I ditched Microsoft for. If I wanted spyware on my system I would have stayed with windows. I'll concede that it is apparently easy to disable but apple should have disclosed what the new version of itunes was going to do beforehand. Also this should be disabled by default. I shouldn't have to do something in order to keep MY computer from sending info to another computer.
Ok, so iTunes "spies" on you if:
* You don't press the button that tells it not to.
How is this spyware/malware again?
How is this different from them tracking your browsing habits in the music store?
(Which I can't imagine any reasonable person objecting to.)
How is this different from them making recommendations based on your past purchases?
(Which can be disabled right from the front page of the store.)
I'm not saying that it's not obnoxious, but calling it "spyware" is ridiculous.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
f you really want to bitch about nothing then here's a far better one: Firefox has cookies enabled by default and sets your homepage to one of theirs on first run - THEY COULD BE SPYING ON EVERYTHING YOU EVAR DO ON TEH INTERPOWER COMPUTERWEB! I know you're being semi-facetious, but what exactly can they do with a cookie that contains, at most, information you already gave them by browsing their website?
ACME Septic. We're #1 in the business of #2.
one more time:
microsoft = darkness and evil
apple = sunshine and goodness
The info they're tracking is not the music in your library but the music that you have already bought from the iTunes music store. And they already keep that in their servers so they can authorize and deauthorize servers and accounts. All their doing is using the receipt of what you've already bought and matching it to your tastes. The only problem with that is the recommendations they give are crap.
It's not like it scans your entire library the moment you launch iTunes.
.x update, it will respect that ministore pane check-box as a kill switch? And whose to say it is not just buffering-up information while the checkbox is off and won't forward that buffer when you re-enable the check-box the next time by, for example, applying the next mandatory .x update?
/. too!)
No, but it might be uploading the Spotlight index that was generated before you launched iTunes.
The matter is you can turn it off before it DOES ANYTHING.
Prove it. It phones home as soon as you fire it's ass up --before you can get in and hit the kill switch on the ministore pane. And whose to say that in the next
Yeah, a consumer electronics device that monitors everything you do with it and phones home is Bad. If you don't believe me, just wait 'til the mainstream press (CNN, ABC, FOX, etc..) gets ahold of this (they monitor
yeah, Amazon tracks what music I buy (though it is very rare that I buy from Amazon)and suggests stuff I might like.
I keep expecting to get a message from them saying "We don't have anything that is even remotely like the stuff you are into. Why don't you get some taste, you wierdo"
I wonder if most of the people here that are tring to make this an issue even use iTunes. I use iTunes on all of my systems, and it works great for me (PC, Mac, Airports, iPods). I was a little shocked when I first saw the mini-store because it took up so much room... not because they knew what song I was playing. With a simple press of a button it was gone. I wonder if some of the people here are paranoid about someone finding out that they stole tons of crappy quality MP3s from their college days???
Idiotic! It's malware because they happen to have a record of what you bought from them? Lame.
If by malware you mean data-mining...
I can't believe you're arguing over the definition of a made-up word that has no actual official meaning.
Please wrap your head around this: "malware" is not a word, and as such has no useful definition. I could say that "malware" is a delicious chocolate-coated treat with a crunchy center, and you couldn't argue with me about it. Because it's a totally made-up word.
Only a company beloved of Slashdot could receive this sort of reaction to a revelation that it had included spyware in its product. (And if something like this had been found in a Linux distro, some one would have published a distro "sans" by now.)
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
2) "But Amazon does it!" - In a browser, while online browsing on *their* servers. A child can see the difference.
Call me a child I guess.
I was using this service last night, and after scrolling through several pages of recommendations I noticed that it was only basing each recommendation off of previous iTunes purchases. It didn't recommend anything based on songs I had put on iTunes from CD, or downloaded from the internet.
Color me unconcerned, and happy with a new useful feature.
I work at a small computer software company, and we do everything in our power to collect as much information about our customers as possible. Every time they log onto the software it checks for updates, which also allows us to track how much and when they use it.
Since the software is largely used during recreational time, this lets us know the best time of day to reach this customer if we have to call them. Our latest marketing push was the most successful we ever had because we had detailed information about the habits of our customers. We know what they usually buy, at what time of the day they like to do their shopping, and when are they most likely to be home and able to answer a call.
What does this allow us to do? It allows us to offer the best service possible to our customer. And of course, that also helps our bottom line so that we make more money. Anyone who is so anal retentive that they care if someone knows what brand of peanut butter they like is being childish. The information age helps everyone, businesses and consumers. You have to take the good with the bad, but in this case the Pros greatly outweigh the Cons.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
And all those records are sitting right there on Apple's computers, with your real names and credit cards attached right to them.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It was discovered that some doctors actually know their patients' illnesses and use that information to prescribe medications.
At most other stores if you say you're from out of town or don't have a card, the cashiers will just scan theirs instead and get you the discount. I've never had that happen at CVS -- maybe the place that I go to just has humorless employees.
I've seen that a couple times. I always wondered whether the employees cashed in on the gas price reductions. (Giant Eagle and Krogers frequently run promotions where, for every $X (usually 50) you buy in a month, you have an X cent (usually about 5) reduction per gallon of gas) I suspect that there's tracking in place to keep that from happening, though.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Obvious troll! Anyone who says that there's some kind of bias on slashdot must be a troll!!!!
I find it annoying that if you go to download Quicktime for an XP box, it makes you install iTunes as well. Wouldn't it be malware then ("Malware is software designed to infiltrate...")?
Don't look now but I have a sneeky suspicion that netflix is tracking my movie preferences.
IMHO, iTunes users 'opted-in' when they installed the software. I'm sure there's an EULA with a phrase buried in it that gives Apple perfect right to do what they are doing. If not, I'm sure someone will start a lawsuit.
You aren't opting in unless you are consciously aware of what is going on. GI's in Vietnam did not opt-in to being blown up with a hand grenade when they picked up a basket outside their barracks. That is because they did not know it would trigger a hand grenade. If users don't know or reasonable suspect the software is sending information about them to Apple, then they can't have opted in.
Legally, Apple may or may not be in the clear, depending upon the jurisdiction. Ethically, I think they have trodden on questionable ground, and it depends upon their intent. If they are mining/using/selling individuals data I think they should have warned people of that in advance. I will trust them less.
You must also admit that the opposite is true. Many people trust blindly and then apply arguments to validate their feelings. Why do people 'trust' Apple? Are they a particularly trustworthy company?
Thus far they have not done anything to lose my trust. They have done several things to gain my trust, like donating code to open source projects, and quickly solving any customer support issues I have had, rather than trying to weasel out of paying for fixes.
MS, on the other hand, has sued orphanages, intentionally corrupted standards, violated anti-trust laws, and killed cool technology. They have been caught lying numerous times and they sell inferior, flawed software while constantly claiming how it is not flawed or insecure.
Actually I think their CEO is probably as rutheless as his counterpart at Microsoft.
I disagree, and more importantly I've heard descriptions very different cultures from friends who have worked for both companies. MS has some smart and innovative people, but they are run by businessmen and the tech side is forced to compromise again and again. Apple is more balanced, if anything the tech side wins out. They are focused on making money, but there is a huge drive to make cool new things and actually change things for the better in the computer industry. Occasionally they release products that are more cool than practical for the market.
Jobs is just smart enough not to piss off his customer base, and of course has not had any type of monopoly until now.
Until now? Come on, the new laptop is cool, but I don't think it has sold that well already.
People trust Apple because they produce designer, feel good products, have a good corporate image and have not had many big PR fiascos. That's not a good enough reason for me to trust them.
I trust Apple, to a point. Obviously they are a business and obviously they will work in their own best interests. I trust them, however, because they have earned that trust over many years.
This will be a good test to see if people can trust Apple. I'm guessing this 'feature' will dissappear in the next release of iTunes because Apple, in general, appears to believe that trust and behaving ethically is important to business.
I doubt this feature will disappear, but hopefully a clear privacy policy will be issued along with a statement about how the data is used. They might switch the feature to opt in, and ask users to enable it, but I doubt that.
There is no *need* for Apple to know what other music you have just to buy a track. None. There may be a need to do so if you ask "what would you recommend", which requires that they know what you like.
So, no, it isn't the same as "earch google without telling them my search query". If to use Google Search, they required you to install Gator, THAT would be about the same.
Prick.
At the risk of sounding trollish, as long as the information is not *abused* I'm not sure why this behavior by iTunes is such a big deal. By entering an agreement with iTunes, one presumably knows ad-tuning is a potential use of the information. If you don't like it, switch to a different service that doesn't use it. Also, generating ads is not abuse, it is an intrinsic property of the free market. And, although I generally dislike ads, if I'm going to get an ad at all (which is a given outside the open source community), I much prefer targeted ads than random ones.
If you want privacy in your music buying habits, pay cash in disguise at a music store. Don't subscribe to a online music service with a vast, not-so-secret database.
Abuse of the information might include things like (but is not limited to):
1) Generating excessive unsolicited spam (I grant that the line between "excessive unsolicited spam" and "tolerable targeted ads" might be easy to spot in the extreme, but more subtle along the continuum).
2) Using the information for political or personal gain or to assist the government (or equivalent entity) in incarceration, torture, or human rights violations using said information.
3) Using the information for illegal activity not covered by 2. Some might argue that the privacy issue might fall into this category. But I don't believe you have an expectation of privacy concerning your buying habits *with the company you are buying from*. They are *obligated* to know your buying habits to satisfy their contract with you to deliver the product. From the company's point of view, to not use this information to "best serve the customer" would be just nuts and inefficient.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
The whole iPod, iTunes thing is just ridiculous. The iTunes service iis for those with a basic knowledge of the media players. "Its buy, buy, buy! and look, if your too stupid to upload to another media device, this will play nicely with your iPod, you should go buy an iPod!!" Its an overpriced media service for an overpriced media player. If you dont want to be tracked and or monitored, then dont use such commercialized crap. Check out iRiver's media player, it accepts most anything in any format, licensed or not.. and yes, it plays video too, for those who want to watch their movies on a 2x2 screen...
If you don't do business with these big evil companies they can't keep data on you. Apple doesn't have any idea what I like to listen to. Know why? Because I've NEVER purchased a song from them. Big companies are going to do everything they can to sell you more stuff, ethical or not. If you do business with them and give the information they can identify you with, they are going to track it.
Who are you buying from again who doesn't keep track of what you buy? Even the hippy at the downtown independant book-store remembers some of my tastes and will point out when something I might be interested in arrives.
Give me a break!
The mainstream press would blow the fact that the phone company keeps a record of your calls out of proportion if it occured to them to do so.
"This cellphone billing statement lists EVERY SINGLE PHONE CALL YOU MADE THIS MONTH! Is this a massive invasion of our privacy?"
Anyway, after all this jittery paranoid nonsense, Apple will probably make it an option checkbox during install on 6.0.3...
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
It would seem rather obvious given what it does and oh yeah, it's on the FEATURES page of iTunes.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Does the dude at the record store pop round your house "to say hi" and then look through your stuff?
Does he demand to know what you listen to before selling to you?
Or does he say "can I look over this - maybe I can find some missing titles for you" or "hey, what do you like to listen to"?
So, Apple's iTMS website gets data from your listening habits, and we are all upset, because we didn't notice the disclaimer when we signed up. Shame on us.
.99 a song, it doesn't scare me.
And yet, how many of you have some sort of "preferred shopper" card for your local grocery store chain(s), that allow you to get their sale price? Ever wonder why they want to do that? Could it *possibly* be that they are data mining your shopping habits? Like... OH MY GOD! I can *feel* my sphincter clenching!
Sure, I don't really want to let them get that info about my particular shopping habits, but since the local grocery store doesn't sell porn and BDSM supplies, I really am not overly worried about what they get. I'd rather not pay 1.49 for one 2-liter of Coke.
And as long as iTMS is ONLY getting what songs I listen to, I really don't give a . For
I *would* like to see that we are able to view ALL content that is being sent, so we can verify that they didn't data mine our other computer activities, but that would be asking for the moon and the stars.
But considering that our credit card companies and bank card companies know exactly how much we spent, and where we spent it, (and it wouldn't surprise me if they knew what we bought, too) why can't we come up with a way to be able to monitor what gets sent back to companies, so we an all get our panties out of a bunch.
That's really stupid. Amazon does the same thing and everybody is happy about it. Most people like that feature, it only bothers paranoic people, and if they don't like it they can always not-use-it and that's it. What's the big deal? (=_=)
Whoo there are so much overreaction here that I can't believe that such paranoïa exists.
Come on, calling this spyware is really an over-exaggeration (I know this is not a word). A real spyware would have used encrypted requests to be undetectable and would not be that easy to disable. It doesn't even use any information. This is a *FEATURE*. Don't like it? Fine!, disable it. It ends right there.
Seriously, do you think it is new in media players? Windows Media Player on Windows by default contacts a CD info server each time you import music. Any music with DRM can send info to another server. And if you ever asked to get more info about your music, you sent a lot more to Microsoft. This is there since at least versions 8/9.
This new feature in iTunes is nothing dangerous. It is not like if iTunes checked for filesharing software. They don't check all your passwords, they don't spy on you, they don't check where your music comes from, they just offer you to send a song name to Apple.
I saw somebody on MacOSXHints.com comparing this to spying you with an iSight. That makes me think that there is really some overparanoid people in this world.
Maybe Apple's spyware just sucks, but the songs that come up on the iTunes Music Store for me bear no relation to the type of music I have on my hard drive.
let's think about this. If they had not enabled this feature automatically, would we have noticed it? They enabled it to get the user's attention. But they also gave the user the option to disable it pretty easily, unlike a lot of spyware and malware which sends you on a treasure hunt to disable it. Personally, I think it is a cute feature and I am not offended by it. Especially since I can turn it off anytime I want. My point is, get a grip people.
According to this blog, iTunes stops phoning home if you turn off mini-store.
I know in this era of Guantanamo, warrantless wiretaps, Echelon and the like, people have a right to be paranoid, but can somebody tell me why this should concern me? Are they leaking my credit-card info and my password to Eastern Europe? Are they reporting me to George Bush? Geez. I noticed it, but didn't focus on what it is doing until I saw the hysteria. So I gave it a shot. Listen to what I did: I recently downloaded a free track from Salon by Betty Karnette (?sp?) which was a knockout. I clicked it in iTunes 6.02, and it showed me the horrible fact that the tracks are in iTunes! (shudder) I mean, at most, this is an annoyance which you can turn off. If there's security hole here that allows bad people to do something to my computer, tell me about it and fix it. But if it's just so you can find other stuff, I'll give you a hint: when you sign into Amazon, it says, Hi, (insert name here), here's your recent purchases, and would you be interested in this? OHMIGOD! HOW DID IT KNOW MY NAME???? I pray to God that Apple won't share my preferences with anybody else. If it did, people might offer to sell me other music. Oh, the horror!
This is just small step in the big crapware that any software will get in some point of time.
The government has never built a weapon they've never used. Every time we build something, we try it out. In Apples case, their tying your names to types of music. There isn't anything wrong with that as long as it doesn't become a weapon they can use against us in future political aspirings, etc. If your opponent has a friend with access to that information and publishes that you downloaded 20 Cyprus Hill songs and listened to them 6,000 times in your local newspaper, people will not vote for you. We must remain anon.
This is the weapon Apple is building.
Why would you trust a testimonial when choosing hosting?
I too racked up 20+ free songs with the Pepsi/iTunes promotion, and then forgot about them until they expired.
I was pissed, too, but to say they "expired [them] without warning" is a bit silly, since the details were plainly laid out, and there was clear notice that they would be usable through April 15 (or whatever).
It's like leaving money laying around, and then being angry that the rest of the world doens't find it and spare no expense to return it for you.
you are funny :)
Let's see. YES. I know it is everytime I click on the little arrow to the right of the songs in my library that take me right to ITMS. And yes, this is all as obvious as it can be, any moron would realize apple didn't go including the ENTIRE ITMS LIBRARY in the newest iTunes release.
Just disactivate it, from the button on right lower corner or from the menus, and nothing is sent of what you listen to.
And if you doubt, use little snitch to verify it.
insofar as marketing is concerned this is a new trend, but this isn't something thats altogether new.
There are huge files locked away somewhere with your medical records on them, documents detailing every illness, disease and broken bone. The police keep records of your criminal history. Insurance companies keep track of your driving record and any claims made. Schools keep details not only of your grades, but also of your misdemeanours.
I don't personally agree with their collection of this information, but IMHO maybe we shouldn't be worrying about wether or not they collect the data, but more how we as the consumer should allow them to use it.
Remeber when Gmail was new and one of the biggest concerns was that Google was "reading" your emails? ...and then remember that they said that it was only a computer scanning it in order to place relevant ads in the email?
And then remember how nobody cared anymore?
I'm having the weirdest sense of déjà vu here....
My iPod keeps track of how many times I play each song. So I assumed iTunes was probably sending the info back to Apple a log time ago.
Vote for Pedro
You should check it out. No need to read, even an analphabet recognizes the big ITMS pane, and would figure out that to display what it does it has to communicate with Apple over the internet.
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
I don't see any benefit that's worth the risk, here. I don't actually need anything iTunes supplies - I can get food, shelter, clothing, etc. without it, in fact even music and video are easily obtainable without iTunes. An infinitesimal increase in convenience is hardly worth risking my system's stability (not to mention encouraging insane EULAs). They need a far more rational license before they will get my traffic, and I'll just use something less convenient in the meantime.
Keep in mind, I don't really care what other folks choose to do with their computers as long as they aren't harming anyone else. The amazing thing to me about this whole argument is that people have flamed me because I've stated that I don't like the iTunes EULA. Do they not have anything better to do with their time? You'd think I stole their girlfriends or something.
Um... wtf? That arrow is irrelevant; it causes iTunes to search for the specific album that you ask it to. What we're talking about is transmitting data about your entire library without opt-in permission. That's an entirely different concept.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
I guess the issue here is that maybe iTunes isn't making it clear that it is tracking users in this way.
However, last.fm has plugins for various media players to do just this tracking, and I find it makes really good recommendations. I guess the other great thing is that last.fm also allows you to hear full tracks of its recommendations for free, as well as other concocted radio stations - I'm not sure I could see Apple doing this, although personally I've bought a lot more music since getting hooked on last.fm.
I could well imagine that for some people this iTunes functionality will be great.
-- Mike
"One:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/playlists/
And while you're browsing your own music, the MiniStore will automatically show you more music from your favorite artists that you can find at the iTunes Music Store.
Two:
Edit->Hide Mini Store or the button in the lower right corner or the iTunes main window."
Why do you assume this means they no longer collect personal information?
Vote for Pedro
When you place a CD into your computer and press play, Windows Media Player takes information about the CD and phones home with it, to get the track and CD information to display in the little window. Same with Real. Same with Winamp.
Sure, you might say: "but that's only to get the CD and song info." I say: prove it.
You have no idea what happens with that data once it leaves your machine. For all you know, Microsoft and Real have aggregate records of how many times you've played Dark Side of the Moon, including at what time and date, and whether you've burned it into your library or not.
If you don't have a problem with phoning home for the CD and track info, I can only conclude that your issue lies not with the phoning home, but with the fact that it's then used to present an ad. In other words you don't care if it's spyware as long as it doesn't serve an ad. That's a different flavor of gripe.
BTW: iTunes is the only player I've used that does NOT automatically grab CD and track info. I have to request that it go out and get them.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You aren't opting in unless you are consciously aware of what is going on.
So who decides what constitutes being 'consciously aware' consists of? Where is the adequate level of informativeness? Sending out privacy policies that nobody can understand or read? Putting obscure references in EULAs? Popping up a warning that most people just click through?
You aren't opting in unless you are consciously aware of what is going on. GI's in Vietnam did not opt-in to being blown up with a hand grenade when they picked up a basket outside their barracks.
No, but that's a good example. They opted-in when they signed up with the military. They were expected to be in harms way. Of course those that were drafted did not 'opt-in' either way.
To take another example, what about anyone that signed up for the military just prior to 9/11? I'm sure their indoctrination said they could be sent to war, but we hadn't had a serious conflict in years. Who thought they would be going to Afghanistan or Iraq and being blown up by terrorists. I'm sure most 2001 high school grads that joined the army thought they'd do their two years and go to college on the governments dime, but some of them got killed halfway around the world. Were they 'conciously aware' of the decision that they made with that Army recruiter? Regardless, I think comparing a little data mining about your music habits to military service is a little out of proportion.
I disagree, and more importantly I've heard descriptions very different cultures from friends who have worked for both companies.
I didn't say Jobs was a jerk or didn't provide a better/different work environment. I said he was ruthless. He didn't get where he is today without being a very competitive businessman.
Until now? Come on, the new laptop is cool, but I don't think it has sold that well already.
I was referring (somewhat sarcastically) to the current topic of iTunes spyware. This could be an issue that tarnishes Apples spotless reputation.
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There are a lot of comments suggesting that hiding MiniStore opts out of data collection. There is nothing I've seen from Apple that claims this is true, however. The data still may be transmitted and stored at Apple. They've just assumed it's ok to data mine your music collection for their own purposes. Who knows what else they're using this data for? I guarantee that if a Sony CD that you put in your computer ran a program that sent info off to Sony about the music on your computer to recommend new CDs, the response on /. would be much different.
Vote for Pedro
ok, of all the people who responded to my post, you win the gold start for relevancy: thanks
Now, I do agree that any applications that one installs on ones computer should be very explicit about any information that is transmitted to ANYWHERE
this is where you and i are in total agreement...it is DECEPTIVE
technical issues aside, this is the heart of my problem with this itunes feature
so I understand what the issue is. Just think the original author is being very chicken little'esque in his stance.
i disagree...chicken little isn't being paranoid if the sky really is falling...it's just a question of HOW FAST the sky is falling (ok done w/ this analogy)
in my view, it is bad to see apple doing this. of course alot of other sites do EXACTLY the same thing...but they're not apple. apple comes off as this enlightened, forward-thinking company (i support apple's corporate philosophy as advertised, but as another poster said, they are a company like everyone else...a publicly traded company
being a publicly traded company means your stock must go up or you (CEO, etc.) are history. That mentality instills a 'make more money' ideal as first priority from the top-down.
yes you may argue that b/c the general business world works that way doesn't automatically mean apple works that way, indeed, but apple is competing in a marketplace...a big marketplace with heavy-handed players...people at apple probably face choices between being a deceptive, evil corporation or a moral, sustainable corporation every day. In the final analysis, I would like to think that people at apple try to make responsible choices, but the DECEPTIVENESS issue must be hard to ignore...
why care about something like this, right? just turn it off for god's sake you moron!!!! well, the thing is, this feature is an indicator of where apple's corporate morals lie...no pun intended...it shows how deceptive they are willing to be
so, one MAY deduce that apple implementing this feature in such a way is an indicator that apple will continue do use similar deceptive practices unless the marketplace reacts negatively and costs them money
so, therefore, this issue is relevant, and bad news...whether it's one file at the start of the playlist or the whole playlist...at least the issue is relevant to anyone who heeds 'caveat emptor'
Thank you Dave Raggett
Contrary to this statement posted by eldavojohn (898314): "I don't want a computer program diagnosing me at a hospital even if it is built on solid Bayesian probability models ..."
I encourage you to build up solid, researched, statistical models you can use to keep me in good health, using as much data as is possible from subjects will to contribute it. I recently went to a wonderful talk given by the acting head of CS at MIT at my University going over the statistical and graphical medical techniques they were developing for brain operations. I can say with complete confidence that I would greatly prefer that to some random guy and a knife working based on illustrations in a textbook that may or may not resemble what I actually look like on the inside.
Thank you.
Signed
- Not Paranoid About Big Brother.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Windows.NET in 6 Bytes (MSIL) : 00 00 00 00 00 2A ;)
You even get an extra NOP out of it!
You mean over a year ago. That news made the rounds in 2004. The other person finally confessed a few weeks after wards, just as 2005 started!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
In other news, it was discovered tomorrow that millions of general contractors, some of them convicted criminals, have intricate details of the layout, wiring, and piping to many homes and commercial buildings all over the world! Called blueprints, they allow anyone capable of reading them to invade your privacy by building a home exactly like yours... or something! SUPREME COURT RULING AT 11!
These purchasing algorithims are fine in theory. JUST ASK ME FIRST. It's the difference between sex and rape. (And, no, a shyster-twisted EULA in a minute scroll bar does not count as asking.) No one reads those through.
For something as important as this (provided this iTunes debacle is true) the setup dialog can ask you. And what about offering a bonus coupon to opt into a service like this? True, Amazon does this tracking thing, but they are very up front about it.
Tracking your purchases is something any good saleman does. But he asks. And he has a relationship with you. "Nice to see you again, Mr Woolman. We have more of those hand laid silk neckties you like so much. I put some aside for you as we agreed last time you were in."
"Thanks, Wiggins. That was thoughtful. I'll take three."
I uninstalled iTunes a while ago. It registered as the default player for all my MP3s without asking and then would not let them go when I tried to change the file association to my preferred player (Winamp) After a few tries getting the association changed I uninstalled it. Remember that Hannibal Lecter ATE the rude.
One reason I like OSS is that it is generally polite about what it does. Commercial software is like a vacuum cleaner salesman. Once the foot is in the door it messes up everything and then is hard to get rid of. Real Player is famous for this. Remember THAT sleazoid tracking scandal?
Ever install Irfanview? Not OSS but freeware. Isn't it pleasant the way it asks you which files you want to register to it. Then it double checks. Anyway, like grandma said, polite software is good software.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Entire library?! Not unless you let it play through your entire library. Yeah, you didn't RTFA. And the arrow is NOT irrelevant. The ministore AND the arrow make the SAME WEBSERVICE CALLS.
Listening to Spice Girls is like eating cyanide. You can do it, but only once.
...just as long as we refrain from listening to Mao's Little Red Book: The Musical on iTunes.
Hiding the mini store window stops all transmission of info to the apple music store. Too bad Microsoft does not take this tack with windows activation.
just what my itunes library needs: more clutter.
What annoys me, about itunes, is that its another service constantly running in the background.
The only one in my dad's house that uses itunes, is my stepsister, for her mini. and she only uses it on that computer like once pr. 2-3 months. Regardless of this. Itunes is always running and using resources when computer is turned on, regardless of which user is logged on.
It should only be nessesary to run the program for the user that installed it, and only when needed.
(that will have to be my only contribution to the discussion, since i've never used itunes).
Officially: "No comments"
Okay, you're right. Apparently no one else RTFA either, cause the comments I read all gave that impression.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
For one thing, Firefox could track every website you visit and modify its "Firefox homepage" cookie accordingly to send the data to them next time you go there. That would be stupid, and I'm sure they don't do it, but it's possible.
I agree that everyone's getting WAAAAYYY too worked up over this. Secretive? Hardly. It takes up a good portion of the window, and only a braindead monkey couldn't figure out how they got the 'related artist' info. If it's not obvious to you the very first time you open the app, you have a lot more to worry about than your precious listening privacy. And oh, if that privacy is sooooo important, spend 3 seconds and find the menu item to turn it off. Finally, nobody's yet proven that they even keep the data that's sent each time a song is clicked! It appears to be a simple transaction: iTunes asks the server to spit back artists related to _____. Nothing more, nothing less. Whoop-de-doo.
Sheesh. They add a helpful feature and the nerd crowd goes ballistic over false privacy invasion claims. And yes, I'd have exactly the same reaction to MS or anybody else doing this. Gotta get worked up over something, I guess.
But frankly, if what Google keeps track of doesn't bother you enough to stop using it, then this shouldn't bother you either.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Because everyone knows that Slashdot comments provide the best source of information.
I don't know. How different is this from Amazon recommending items based on what I've recently viewed? I never "asked" the site to remember everything. I'm not even sure there's a way to opt out of this except for deleting cookies and even that may not work for things I've added to my Wish List. I guess maybe it's a little too far to be looking at the music you listen to that didn't come from Apple, but you can go further and say that if you're using Apple's free iTunes software to play that music you opted in. Long story short, you can use another jukebox and they told you what they were doing.
Check out the update on Macosxhints.com. Apple contacted them directly to let them know that iTunes is not collecting any information... btw, if they are recommending songs based on genre, artist, etc that is gathered locally and not stored in some Apple super-spyware database someplace then to get a list of songs from the Music Store it's going to have network traffic...0 111071001306/
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
Rob over at mac hints seems to think that the original analysis is wrong and that "that absolutely no information is being collected from the MiniStore". http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060 111071001306/
Rob at MacOSXHints.com (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2006 0111071001306) has cleared this up with Apple. There's no story here, move on.
Anything that phones home about stuff on my computer without telling me is bad, in my book. Apple didn't put my music on there (except for the few iTMS tracks); it doesn't deserve to know about them unless I choose to tell it.
Here is what Software Update says about the update:
"With iTunes 6, you can preview, buy, and download over 2,000 music videos and hit TV shows on the iTunes Music Store and sync your music and purchased videos with iPod to enjoy on the go. To watch purchased videos, you must have QuickTime 7.0.3 or later and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
"iTunes 6.0.2 includes stability and performance improvements over iTunes 6.0.1.
"Note: After purchasing music from the iTunes Music Store with iTunes 6 or later, you will also need to upgrade your other computers that purchase music from the iTunes Music Store to the latest version of iTunes."
I never read the EULA on my updates; does anyone? Nevertheless, here's what the EULA I got before I downloaded the update says about iTMS:
"4. iTunes Music Store and other Services. This software enables access to Apple's iTunes Music Store which offers downloads of music for sale and other services (collectively and individually, "Services"). Use of the Services requires Internet access and use of certain Services requires you to accept additional terms of service which will be presented to you before you can use such Services."
Perhaps I missed it in all the legalese, but I couldn't find anywhere that it said anything about phoning home about music on my computer.
Oddly, the EULA I got after I installed the update and started iTunes is...different. DIFFERENT. Though both are titled "Software License Agreement for iTunes." WTF? I say again, WTF? However, I still wasn't able to find anything about phoning home.
I start iTunes. I see a pane at the bottom of the screen with iTMS stuff in it. So what? I click a track to start playing. It phones home, retrieves the information, and tells me what others who listen to Joan Jett & the Blackhearts also purchased.... Um. I didn't see any changes to my iTMS Terms of Service.
No, I don't think I was given any reasonable warning that iTunes' behavior had changed, and it was now telling Apple about music on my computer.
It does seem that Apple has been very careful in setting this up, technically, so that information on individuals is not stored or tracked. That's good. If I were given the choice, I might choose to let iTMS track my music in the hope of getting more obscure depressing Irish folk music online. However, in this case, virtue is not enough. They also need the appearance of virtue, and this they sorely lack.
And I'm still confused about the EULAs. Perhaps the morning will make it clear.
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.
Apple already knows you bought such and such track. You clicked the Buy Now button next to a specific track so that you could download it. Ye Gods, the nerve of Apple, thinking that because you (may) own an iPod and (do) use iTunes, you may enjoy music enough that you'd consider purchasing more.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
Upon installtion on my PC, it tried to disguise the addresses it connected to. Specifically : 192.168.112.207.net
See the full story at http://jc.coynel.free.fr/serendipity/
So who decides what constitutes being 'consciously aware' consists of?
That depends upon the context, of course. If this ever were to go to court in a jurisdiction that had anti-spyware laws, the courts would likely be ruling on if a user "knew or had a reasonable expectation" that the software would send information about their listening habits back to Apple.
No, but that's a good example. They opted-in when they signed up with the military. They were expected to be in harms way. Of course those that were drafted did not 'opt-in' either way... Regardless, I think comparing a little data mining about your music habits to military service is a little out of proportion.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. Is it a good analogy or not? Here's my take. The average person joining the military has a reasonable expectation that they might be put in danger. Anyone, soldier or civilian, picking up a basket does not have a reasonable expectation that it will explode. One is intentionally deceitful. One is not. Are you arguing that the average person who buys a mac, or installs iTunes expects that Apple will be listening in on what music they play?
I didn't say Jobs was a jerk or didn't provide a better/different work environment. I said he was ruthless. He didn't get where he is today without being a very competitive businessman.
No, but you used that to support the argument that Apple cannot be trusted any more than Microsoft. Believe it or not, the corporate culture has more to do with a company's actions than the CEO. That culture is usually a reflection of what type of people and what values the CEO promotes over a long period of time.
I was referring (somewhat sarcastically) to the current topic of iTunes spyware. This could be an issue that tarnishes Apples spotless reputation.
...and that has what to do with them being a monopoly? Behaving unethically does not make you a monopoly. Apple is constantly doing things that may tarnish or improve their reputation. No one I can think of would be foolish enough to judge a company by any single action. A pattern of behavior is a useful predictor. A single data point is not.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. Is it a good analogy or not?
I think the analogy is accurate, but I think it's highly inappropriate to trivialize the service our men and women in uniform give this country by comparing them with something as innocous as data mining by a computer company.
One is intentionally deceitful. One is not. Are you arguing that the average person who buys a mac, or installs iTunes expects that Apple will be listening in on what music they play?
That's exactly what I'm arguing. If a person purchases a commercially licensed piece of software, and is concerned about things like this (which most people aren't), they should thoroughly read the EULA, with a lawyer present, and be sure they understand the ramifications of their purchase. If you don't want your information compromised be very careful about the software you use. To most of us it's not that important. At some point it has to be the individual's responsibilty to guard his/her rights. Companys are going to data mine, a bunch of lawmakers in Washington making a bunch of noise about it isn't going to change that.
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I think the analogy is accurate, but I think it's highly inappropriate to trivialize the service our men and women in uniform give this country by comparing them with something as innocous as data mining by a computer company.
Hmm, either you are just trying to win an argument using the logical fallacy of an emotive plea, or you truly believe this trivializes the deaths of soldiers. In the first case, you have failed. In the second, perhaps you should consider why you think this trivializes their deaths. What about such an analogy causes you to think less of dead soldiers?
That's exactly what I'm arguing. If a person purchases a commercially licensed piece of software, and is concerned about things like this (which most people aren't), they should thoroughly read the EULA, with a lawyer present, and be sure they understand the ramifications of their purchase.
I see, so you think companies should be able to hide behind legal licenses. If, for example, I buy a video game that has a click through license you think it is ok for that game to scour my hard drive for financial records and send them to the game company? Or perhaps they could turn on your Webcam and sell any nakedness that they manage to catch. Provided, of course, that they have some legalese that says they can do anything they want. Have you read the licenses that come with software? The vast majority of them are filled with unenforceable clauses they put in in the hopes it might be enforceable somewhere. Luckily the courts disagree with you. Licenses need to be read by both parties and there needs to be an understanding of the terms before the license is enforceable. In my state "I didn't read the license" is valid grounds for it to be dismissed.
Companys are going to data mine, a bunch of lawmakers in Washington making a bunch of noise about it isn't going to change that.
Defeatism is not a logical argument. Making it illegal to mine data is a valid way to stop it.
When I bought my TV, I did not check to see if their is a hidden camera in it that records my every move. When I bought my blender, I did not investigate it to see if it transforms into a robot that harvests my blood at night and delivers it to a local research firm. I did not do these things because I do not have a reasonable expectation that they would behave in such a way. Now if I install a music player, I don't expect it to report on my behavior to the company that wrote it, and most other people don't have that expectation either. I'm not too concerned that it does, and I can see that it does when I run the program, but it is not what I was lead to believe the software would do. Previous versions of the same software did not do these things. As a result, I think Apple is ethically in the wrong here. They should have informed users as to what it was doing before doing anything. Just as my blender maker should tell me beforehand if their blender also harvests my blood, rather than waiting for me to wake up and see it doing so.
some tasty information about the muslim faith of "islam" the "religion of peace"
It's time for the American people, and non-Muslims around the world for that matter, to wake up and see Islam for what it really is. A religion based on subjugation, violence, wife-beating and terror. Mohammed was no more a prophet than Osama Bin Laden. He was a common thief, murderer, rapist and terrorist. And we need to wake up to that fact before we have that sword placed at the back of our own necks.
these are all direct verses of the koran..
Here are a few verses that guide the Islamic followers and Islamic terrorists. Those who refute these passages and rationalize them by using the "context" argument, don't have much leg to stand on when these passages from the Quran are considered to be the "direct word of god," free from human alteration.
"You may already know about this one: O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. [al-Ma'idah 5:51.11]
But did you know that there are 123 verses in the Quran concerning fighting and killing for the cause of Allah? Here are but a few passages:
-Muslims are encouraged to be wholly occupied (Sura 2:273) with fighting for Allah's cause.
- Allah will give "a far richer recompense to those who fight for him" (Sura 4:96).
- Regarding infidels (unbelievers), they are the Muslim's "inveterate enemies" (Sura 4:101). Muslims are to "arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush everywhere" (Sura 9:5) for them. They are to "seize them and put them to death wherever you find them, kill them wherever you find them, seek out the enemies of Islam relentlessly" (Sura 4:90). "Fight them until Islam reigns supreme" (Sura 2:193). "Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers" (Sura 8:12).
- If a Muslim does not go to war, Allah will kill him (Sura 9:39). He is to be told, "the heat of war is fierce, but more fierce is the heat of Hell-fire" (Sura 9:81).
- A Muslim must "fight for the cause of Allah with the devotion due to him" (Sura 22:78)
- Muslims must make war on the infidels (unbelievers) who live around them (Sura 9:123).
- Muslims are to be "ruthless to unbelievers" (Sura 48:29).
- A Muslim should "enjoy the good things" he has gained by fighting (Sura 8:69).
- A Muslim can kill any person he wishes if it be a "just cause" (Sura 6:152).
- Allah loves those who "fight for his cause" (Sura 61:3).
Anyone who fights against Allah or renounces Islam in favor of another religion shall be "put to death or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off alternative sides" (Sura 5:34).
- Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him. Sahih Al-Bukhari (9:57)
- Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. (Koran 9:5)
- Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire. (Koran 69:30-37)
- I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them. (Koran 8:12)
- They should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides. (Koran 5:33)
- Know that paradise is under the shades of swords. Sahih al-Bukhari Vol 4 p55"
Does this sound like a religion of peace to you?
I searched for something and it brought up ads related to what I was searching for! Hence, google is datamining me and tracking my every move online with "cookies"!
In the second, perhaps you should consider why you think this trivializes their deaths. What about such an analogy causes you to think less of dead soldiers?
...you think it is ok for that game to scour my hard drive for financial records and send them to the game company...
I think it's disrespectful, but that aside, a couple more comments on the analogy. The military analogy breaks down for a couple reasons. First, it's not like your 'bomb in a basket' is the only example of a military atrocity ever concocted. For the most part, besides a short time period where armies just lined up all civilized like a big game of red rover, war has always been filled with underhanded, evil tactics. You shouldn't sign up for military service without understanding the possibilty that something really bad and nasty COULD happen. Second, there's not really any way to stop bad things from happening in a wartime situation. What, is the dead soldier going to sue the US government because they were killed in an unorthodox fashion? Dying is kind of the point of war. Neither of these issues are true in our current topic.
No, absolutely not. I don't think any licensing agreement can give a software vendor carte blanche to do anything they want on your computer. Thing is, both your software examples and your wacky blender example would have much more far reaching economic (not to mention logistic) problems than they would legal problems. If Hamilton-beach, sunbeam, Oster or any other appliance manufacturer came out with a blender that attacked you in the middle of the night I'm fairly confident that company would be bankrupt very shortly. The market would take care of itself and adjust accordingly. Software that takes data that you feed into it, reports said data back to it's manufacturer who then uses that data for legitimate business purposes does not seem like a problem to me at all. Why should the manufacturer have to jump through hoops to attempt to verify that the consumer understands what's happening, especially if the document it in an EULA or privacy policy.
Defeatism is not a logical argument. Making it illegal to mine data is a valid way to stop it.
My comment wasn't defeatism. Making data mining illegal is NOT a valid way to stop it for several reasons. First, it's not enforceable in any kind of practical way. Politicians and many of their constituents seem to think that just because a law is made the problem will go away. History has shown us that this is just not true. Drug laws haven't stopped drugs, traffic laws haven't stopped speeders and data mining laws won't stop data miners. There just aren't enough resources available to supervise every revision of every software product out there. Second, when the law was enforced, it's unlikely the law would be enforced evenhandedly. Our current legal climate is favoring large businesses. There have been several citizens arrested and tried for distributing computer viruses, but I'm not aware of any Sony employees on trial for distributing a rootkit to many thousands or millions of computers. Why isn't this justice being distributed evenhandedly. It is likely, based on recent history, that prosecuters would go after the low hanging fruit, prosecute small companies and leave big offenders, like Apple and their iTunes music monitoring, alone. Third, the penalties would have to be outrageous to make data mining stop being an economically viable activity. How much more music do you think iTunes will sell by being able to target their customers more accurately? How much revenue is that going to be? It's unlikely, if a law was passed outlawing data mining, that the penalty would be severe enough to deter a large company from conducting the activities. Finally, how could 'data mining' be defined? Would we arrest, as someone else in this article pointed out, the hippy down at the used book store that remembers what you like? All the grocery stores with their discount cards? Webmasters that watch their stats to see which page is most popular? Data mining has been done for (at least) hundreds of years in one form or another. Outlawing it isn't going to stop it.
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If Hamilton-beach, sunbeam, Oster or any other appliance manufacturer came out with a blender that attacked you in the middle of the night I'm fairly confident that company would be bankrupt very shortly. The market would take care of itself and adjust accordingly.
Ahh, but that is an extreme example, extreme enough to get media attention and overcome apathy. Also, you're assuming people found out about it quickly. What if the blender army collected enough blood in a night so that it was more profitable than the company would otherwise make in many years of honest dealings. You can't rely upon the market to police based upon profitability because, as MS has proved, breaking the law is often profitable.
Making data mining illegal is NOT a valid way to stop it for several reasons. First, it's not enforceable in any kind of practical way.
Sure it is. In fact forms of data mining are illegal in some countries right now.
Politicians and many of their constituents seem to think that just because a law is made the problem will go away. History has shown us that this is just not true. Drug laws haven't stopped drugs, traffic laws haven't stopped speeders and data mining laws won't stop data miners.
The first two items on your list are attempting to change the behaviors of the populace as a whole using a an inadequately small police force. Speeding laws are not supposed to stop speeding. They are designed to motivate people to not speed "too much" and to provide an alternative income to outright taxation. Laws against murder actually do stop a lot of murders. Laws against embezzlement deter much embezzlement. Are you trying to argue all laws are useless?
There just aren't enough resources available to supervise every revision of every software product out there.
Who cares? Prosecuting some provides a deterrent to others and money to prosecute still more.
Second, when the law was enforced, it's unlikely the law would be enforced evenhandedly. Our current legal climate is favoring large businesses.
So? This has always been true. It is no reason not to create such a law and in fact is less likely to be abused against an individual, since most individuals do not mine data for commercial purposes.
Third, the penalties would have to be outrageous to make data mining stop being an economically viable activity. How much more music do you think iTunes will sell by being able to target their customers more accurately?
Large fines are not a problem. It has come out, in the last day that Apple is not data mining and keeps no personally identifying information on customers. So they won't sell any more or less.
Finally, how could 'data mining' be defined? Would we arrest, as someone else in this article pointed out, the hippy down at the used book store that remembers what you like? All the grocery stores with their discount cards? Webmasters that watch their stats to see which page is most popular?
Grocery stores don't care about your data, they just use it to count sales to market themselves to manufacturers. As for defining data mining, that would require more legalese than I car to attempt right now. This is all beside the point. The original issue is not creating databases of information. The problem is with collecting information using your computer and internet connection, secretly, without warning. The issue is spyware, not databases of information collected from spyware. The issue is deceptive software that does things users have no reason to assume it is doing. Trying to change the subject to data mining is just avoiding the issue.
I'm all about privacy, and I think that if something likes this miniiTms bothers you thats fine, but realistically you can turn it off.
Really though, what is going to happen if apple finds out you listen to the Macarina...?
And this stuff about them enabling automatically to be evil.. good lord!
Please consider this scenario: You have just added a possibly useful new feature to an application you have written, you want people to know about it. You enable it by default
Is that really so evil?
If con is the opposite of pro. Then isn't congress the opposite of progress?
You're absolving the end user from personal responsibility. The information was there, but the users were too lazy to bother reading anything about the product they were using.
People have certain assumptions about the products they are using, and those assumptions are justified. When I play a local piece of music and click on a button in the UI of a local application, I don't expect personal information to be transmitted anywhere without asking me.
The correct thing for an application to do is to pop up a dialog the first time that says "This feature transmits information about your listening habits to the Apple Music Store. Is that OK?".
The American public is used to being spoon fed everything and it's led us to being fat and lazy. Personal responsibility folks. It's not that difficult of a concept.
Yes, indeed, it's about personal responsibility and not being lazy. Software developers should take personal responsibility for the software they create, and that includes not transmitting personal information to a server without explicit notification to the user. People who can't grasp such a simple concept shouldn't be developing software.
A web page is not the proper place for this sort of thing. The place this needs to show up is the first time the user attempts to use the feature in the application: a big dialog box in which the user sets the policy initially, plus the ability to change it in the Preferences ("never send any information to Apple", "always require confirmation for information sent to Apple", "automatically transmit information related to music recommendations to Apple").
Programmers who think that putting up a notice on a web site aren't taking their professional responsibilities seriously.