Slashdot Mirror
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.
This spying news with iTunes sounds more like jealous FUD coming from their competitors.
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.
If you install a piece of software and it starts to gathering information about you, it's called spyware even if there's some magic button combination or option that turns it off. Until it is turned off, it's spyware. I don't understand why the default setting isn't "off" but I guess that was Apple's decision and now they'll catch flack for it.
My work here is dung.
I've noticed that iTunes suggested music to me before. However, it was only related to what I currently had in my shopping cart. It never much bothered me.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
"reliable word has it that it was Steve Jobs himself" then why not cite the source?
You can always trust what Steve Jobs says,
"We will NOT be releasing a video iPod"........
Release the source of the server app and then we might believe you. We've all heard the "not actually collected" bit many times. Sony first tried to deny this particular privacy invasion in their rootkit, yet later they were caught out. Unique URLs combined with IPs, what more do you need?
Frankly, if I were writing such a service, logging some of the most financially valuable market research you get your hands on is a given. There wouldn't be any debate on the issue, you log it and sell it! And if you are morally sound, you offer it as an opt-on program and be honest about it.
From the article: The good news is, Apple tells us that the information is not actually being collected. The data sent is used to update the MiniStore and then discarded. If you think about it, this makes sense--imagine the size of the data files they would accumulate with millions of users and what must be hundreds of millions of songs played each day. But Apple should tell us as much, so that we can all relax a bit about sharing our listening habits with Apple.
That sounds like the amount of data the Google collects daily and has done for months. That sort of information would be a treasure trove to record companies and marketing execs. Apple has said that they are not keeping the data, and I choose to give them the benefit of the doubt here. However, when a weak (or fallacious) argument like the one above is used it gives me pause.
Why do folks assume that iTunes and every other software isn't reporting your shoe size, whether you 2% milk back, and which M&M's you eat first to the green men on Mars (10 1/2, No and Yellow Peanuts, btw)? How many idiots have been outed because Microsoft Word document headers recorded the name they entered when they installed Office? Assume nothing.
For sale: Signature. One owner. Low miles. Always garaged. New punctuation, just installed!
Google scans your emails for ads, Amazon tracks your order history for recommendations, credit card company analyze your transactional pattern to offer balance transfer promotions....
it's all about tayloring for each customer.
provided Apple is not *sharing* this data with 3rd-parties, I don't find anything wrong with internal data mining.
Did you know every major web browser by default sends out info about your operating system name and version, your CPU type, usually your ISP, your browser and version and sometimes extras added onto your browser, and allows it to be logged on almost every single website you have ever visited. Most web browsers DO NOT ALLOW YOU TO CHANGE THIS.
So browsers are spyware too by the attitude some people are taking here.
In other words defining as spyware is not a black and white picture. It's shades of grey and in this situation I see iTunes as pretty white.
You wouldn't get a car from Apple anyway. Get over it.
The onus is on you to protect yourself if you're so paranoid about your privacy. A harmless ad server using your collection to serve relevant ads is a reasonable thing to expect a company to do if you have a business relationship with them.
If you're this desperately paranoid about the evil corporations knowing what music you listen to, guess what? Apple already does, every time you buy a song through their store, and furthermore they have your real name, credit card number, and address also. You shouldn't be using this service.
This is reality. Time to deal with it.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
I think it would be fun to see the reactions to the story now.
The Internet has changed everything regarding bartering and trade. Up until 1995, I believe one could argue (and win) the debate on using regulations to keep businesses honest.
Now that we have near perfect instantaneous group communication, we've opened the doorway to not needing anything but consumer power to control companies, even the biggest companies such as Apple.
If a company performs some act -- faithfully or greedily -- that consumers don't like, you can expect the fact to be released where in the past it might have been kept secret (the media isn't very pro-consumer). We wonder why newspapers and magazines are dying -- they have advertisers to keep happy. The web lets everyone get information out that is important to them, and if enough people have a problem with a company, that negative information will gain steam quickly.
Apple did try to hedge against this outcry, as the article says, by providing the facts for those interested in them. Should Apple have performed an opt-in program rather than an opt-out? Yes. Do we need laws and regulations to force them? No -- they'll learn from this situation.
If Apple doesn't learn a lesson from consumer fallout, someone else will. There are already iTunes replacement programs out there -- provided out of voluntary methods (capitalism) rather than coercive methods (mercantilism and socialism).
Be glad that we have the Internet, it will soon allow us to back out of all the pro-corporation regulations that we're paying good tax dollars to enforce.
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.
I always thought malware was MALicious.
Spies work in secret. So does SPYware.
iTunes is neither malware nor spyware, and the people who claim it is are paranoid jackasses.
iTunes is doing this right in front of your face. I adamantly believe Apple should have included at least a dialog box at first launch of iTunes 6.02 informing users about the ministore, but I hardly consider it a breach of any sort of ethical barrier. The comparison to Gmail seem to be on the money... it's pretty much the same thing.
As sort of an aside, it's not a terrible feature, and it's not intrusive or nagging when you don't want it hanging around. I would have definitely preferred that there was at least a notification though.
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
It's a bit funny that the iTunes software agreement explicitly states that Gracenote CDDB uses a session id for tracking, while they omit the same information for the iTunes Music Store.
I can't help but think if this were ANY OTHER COMPANY than Apple, that the reaction would be universal condemnation.
Imagine if Sony's Connect player was upgraded and did this kind of thing, by default, and didn't mention a word about it? There would've been plans made to burn the CEOs at the stake and public bulldozings of Sony equipment. Of course, no one cares about Sony Connect so maybe that wasn't the best example.
The fact is, Apple is a corporation. They don't care about you. They don't come over and feed your pets when you're on vacation. They're in business to make money. By having these 'related artists', it might feed iTunes sales. And they slipped a feature in that phones home (actually, phones a third party) without being explicit about what is going on. Sure, it could be innocuous (and appears-- TODAY-- to be semi-innocuous) but no one knew yesterday except a mysterious connection was being made with no explanation.
As for everyone saying "When you buy something they can track your habits" -- of course they can. That's expected. What's not expected is a third party IP address obtaining information just as you're playing music with no explanation of what they're getting. Apple COULD HAVE been sending ANYTHING to them. That company could have been doing ANYTHING with that. It wasn't explicit.
Either way, they blew it and they got called on it. This is a privacy issue. Don't let your fanboy-ism get in the way of seeing that. The public reaction was a GOOD thing.
who complained about this, are those who use their frequent purchasers cards when they go to Walgreens, and have then no issues when Walgreens knows exactly how much gatorade they drink, what brand asthma medicines they use, and when they bought the last pregnancy test for their wife or lover, and who wipe the frequent flyers cards when they fly. And most of the same people use credit cards ... AmEx, Visa, and Mastercard know basically everything that you buy, and when, and where.
So, if Apple could have known you would have been listening to Britney Spears or other hideous music, for a whole one track, AmEx knows you bought 5 CDs of her. And they still could not have known if you ripped the track yourself or used some hideous p2p to get it.
The discussion about this topic was fast and furious yesterday.
And today you were hoping they would be 2 Fast 2 Furious?
A sort of commentary sequel, if you will? Hmmmm?
If I walk into a clothing store, it doesn't surprise me if the clerk offers to show me something based on what I'm wearing.
I understand your angle, but for me not every song I buy has the exact same rankings in my preferences. But how much I play them tends to indicate how much I like the songs, and this is data.
I'm not saying that Apple is my friend or I'm promoting these practices. But if done right, privacy can be ensured and introduce a level of service that can't be had without these information. For example, if a product never gets feedback, then how would the developers know how well it's doing? Similarily, Apple needs to know your "feedback" in order to know what you like or don't like. Similar to this, Amazon's recommendation system has more than once recommended to me something that I ended up liking (granted this is only based on what you're browsing), and I appreciate that (don't flame me, this is just my personal preference).
As for the giant warning, I agree that they should have warned the user, even if they turned on the data collection by default.
If this were windows media player (again - it phoned home when you played DVDs, and was resoundly condemded in many circles) there wouldn't be a person on slashdot without a torch or pitchfork.
The fact that Apple is more often viewed as being product and customer centerned than a tyrannical monopoly is the only reason people will defend this kind of activity.
Apple was taking your personal information about your personal music being played on your personal computer and sending it back to themselves. Basic common courtesy dictates you ask people for personal information, you don't take it. The fact Jobs says he's not being malevolent is nice, but doesn't change the fact Apple somehow felt entitled to know what music you're playing on iTunes at any given time.
One dialog box, "Is it ok to send information about the music you're playing so we can better recommend purchases for you?" is all it takes. That one little question makes this a nice features instead of an invasion of privacy.
I don't mind that they are using my purchase data. What I DO mind is that the service insists on recommending crappy, overpromoted songs that I would never, ever like (and I can't get it to stop).
I turned off the service because I was tired of being told that I would like Will Smith's "Switch". This is just blatant promotion as I haven't bought anything remotely like it. In a way -- this IS using my data for 3rd parties by making me believe that there is some correlation between my tastes and overhyped crap that has flooded the national earspace.
If they are going to collect my data, they should, as a courtesy, do something smart with it.
What a great idea. I've used it already to purchase music. Good Job Apple
Perhaps "spying" is too strong a word, but they weren't exactly putting it out front for people to see easily, were they? Look, after Sony's DRM flap, even a hint of impropriety is enough to release the hounds. Why should Apple be immune? Any company that can't come right out and tell you exactly what they are doing up front is simply asking to be ridiculed.
Don't worry, this isn't going to put a dent in the growing ranks of the iZombies, but it should make people read the fine print more carefully, and it should make any company (not just Sony, Apple, or Symantec) be more wary about trying to do things in the background rather than being up front about it. The only way people are going technology they can trust is if they demand accountability from the companies that produce it. This isn't on par with the Sony DRM flap, but who knows where it might have gone had it been left unchecked.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Do you really think they would want to store that much information? Even if they did, if the request does not have any information specific to you, you have nothing to worry about.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.