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Apple Responds to iTunes Spying Allegations
daveschroeder writes "According to MacWorld and BoingBoing: 'An Apple spokesman (reliable word has it that it was Steve Jobs himself) told MacWorld that Apple discards the personal information that the iTunes Ministore transmits to Apple while you use iTunes. [...] Apple tells us that the information is not actually being collected. The data sent is used to update the MiniStore and then discarded.' Apple also has a knowledge base article, which apparently was available the day iTunes 6.0.2 was introduced, explaining the MiniStore behavior and how to disable it: 'iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.'" The discussion about this topic was fast and furious yesterday.
Also, even if this is related to the song you're currently listening to, I still think it's a non-issue. If you look at something on Amazon, you'll see recommendations for similar or related items. The same basic rule applies.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
"They could have avoided a lot of complaints if they had simply made a feature you could enable--not a feature you have to disable."
I think those complaning is in minority, and those in the majority would miss out a feature that actually could be quite handy...
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
Well, I know that when I fired up iTunes after updating, I saw the ministore down there, decided I didn't care to see it, and clicked the little hide/minimize icon underneath it. Wow it was tough to get rid of it!
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Disclaimer: I am the article submitter.
This is not "Damage Control". They did make it clear. The knowledge base article, available the day iTunes 6.0.2 was release, specifically said:
iTunes sends data about the song selected in your library to the iTunes Music Store to provide relevant recommendations. When the MiniStore is hidden, this data is not sent to the iTunes Music Store.
In addition, the day iTunes 6.0.2 was released, http://www.apple.com/itunes/ said:
Discover Music
Discover new music as you enjoy your collection or import new CDs -- with MiniStore.
and http://www.apple.com/itunes/playlists/ said:
Discover New Music
Looking for some new tunes? Tap into the 2-million-song treasure chest of the iTunes Music Store through the new MiniStore. While you're browsing your own library or importing a new CD, MiniStore appears at the bottom of the iTunes window and shows you other albums from your favorite artists and artists like them. You can even see reviews of these albums plus what other listeners who like this artist purchased -- so you'll never be at a loss for new music to discover. When you're ready to go back to full-screen mode, click an icon and MiniStore tucks away, ready to pop up again later when you want to explore some more.
and
MiniStore
Discover new music as you enjoy your collection or import new CDs with MiniStore -- right from your iTunes library.
Further, the MiniStore actively changing as you click different tracks in iTunes might give a small hint that something is happening.
Now, if you're saying that Apple should have had some kind of a dialog box come up when you first upgraded to and launched iTunes 6.0.2 explaining this and giving a clear option to simply opt to not use the new MiniStore, sure, I'll agree that would have likely been better. But Apple wasn't hiding this, and this isn't damage control, other than the fact that if enough blogs keep (incorrectly) asserting that Apple is "spying" on you, then it isn't long before some mainstream media picks the (incorrect) story up.
Oh yes it does. ANY song that you select, whether one you bought or one you ripped yourself will cause the mini-store to update with other products from the same artist.
But so what? It can be a useful feature. If you don't want it, it's 1 click to turn it off. At which point, no more queries will be made of the Apple store for the artist name. Problem solved.
The packets are being sent to a third party. This has been reported from the beginning. Omniture is not noted in the iTunes EULA the way, say, Gracenote CDDB is. Even if Apple isn't saving the information, what do we know about Omniture? We have no policy from them on this issue. Their business is collecting statistical information. They're a marketing firm.
For that matter, why does the data need to go to a third party at all? How are they related to the iTMS?
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.
ISP, yes.
Your originating IP address (which the server must get in order to return information to you) is enough to reveal who your ISP is. Every internet connection that isn't proxied through another host will give that information.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
>Automated data collection...
there is no automated data collection. there is just click-based searching. get a freaking clue.
bandwidth!? cpu!? you'd have 100 dialogue boxes on every website - "do you want to load our banner image? do you want to load our frame containing menu items? do you want to launch...".
the ministore is a minibrowser where your songs you click on are links to searches for relevant info.
Excuse me, but YOU haven't tested it properly. I have it right here, right now. I have 4 songs downloaded from iTMS and 2065 that were ripped. If I select any one of those 2096 tracks, then the mini-store will display other products from that artist. If the artist isn't known by iTMS it will display New Releases instead.
You are wrong. And you're an idiot for telling other people to test it when clearly you haven't properly tested this out yourself.
What collection and analysis? From everything I've seen, they collect nothing, but query a server that uses the ITMS data set to retrieve recommendations.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.