"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."
I don't buy any music from Apple. I need to use iTunes to upload songs to my iPod, however. Apple is the one that needs to deal with reality and respect my privacy by asking me first before attempting to download information from my computer. Otherwise I'll go buy something from iRiver or Creative next time.
"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."
There's a big difference between Amazon using information you voluntarily gave them, and Apple uploading information on your computer without asking you whether or not it was ok.
"Considering that your case consists of 'probably,' 'wouldn't you think,' wild guesses and assumptions with no basis in reality and which in fact stand in opposition to the established facts, surely your case is the ill-made one?"
The only established fact is that when MiniStore is on Apple collects data on the music you're playing. Until today there was not even a statement by Apple as to what was done with the data, aside from the obvious. These are reasonable questions to ask. They are not at all in opposition to the established facts. Even today all we have is Apple's word they aren't storing the data. Where do they get the data to correlate songs you're listening to with songs you might like, BTW?
"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... "
Walgreens doesn't have a camera in my house that sends data back to them to determine and remind me that I'm out of aspirin.
"If you are using a service, RTFM and then go read the FAQ. Bonus advice: turn off auto-updating on non-critical applications."
I shouldn't have to read every manual and EULA to install or update software. I should at least expect Apple to ask me before sending my private data home. When people found out that Microsoft was sending their computer system hardware and configuration details to MS for diagnostic purposes, people were rightfully outraged. Now MS asks you in a dialog box. I don't excuses about how it's harmless. Just fix the problem and stop pretending it isn't one.
"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."
The point is, even if you do this, once you rip the cd, Apple knows you have it. You didn't even buy the music from them. iTunes is the only official interface to your iPod for music the iPod plays.
Now when they spike trees, they can collect energy as well!
BTW, quoting volts is useless. You need to quote power numbers to determine how much energy can be extracted. Even if a KV was produced, if only a pA of current flows into your load, that's not a whole lot of energy.
does hiding MiniStore stop data collection?
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 1
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.
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?
Spyware is by definition malware. Just because there is an apparent obvious use doesn't mean there aren't other things Apple could do with this data. They could sell it to record labels. They could identify tracks that are probably obtained illegally, etc.
"How different and onerous is this compared to the Amazon "people who have purchased this also have purchased...," feature?"
It's far worse because Amazon didn't look through data on my computer that's private to make their suggestions. Amazon is using their own information based on pruchases made at their site. Their not mining people's song collections for data.
Re:Extremely easy to disable, and more info
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 1
"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."
Prove it. I don't believe you.
Re:Extremely easy to disable, and more info
on
iTunes is Malware?
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· Score: 1
"Giving up, indeed, is lame.
What are your goals, and what is your strategy?"
The goal is to not have companies collect information on your computer and send it to their servers without specifically asking you first. The strategy is to publicly expose companies that do and boycott their software until they change their ways.
Re:Big Brother and the iTunes Company
on
iTunes is Malware?
·
· Score: 1
"Uh, no. By my logic the sign would be big and in bold type (like on apples website) and hanging in the window. But my guess is people like you wouldn't read it anyway, and would whine when they got punched.
"It's going to hurt Spielberg very little in the long run, but it's still very annoying to him all the same- and it's over paranoia about "piracy"..."
Why do people call people who worry about piracy paranoid when it is a real problem. It's the/. crowd that's in denial. They've even considered stopping screeners altogether since they invariably end up on the p2p sites.
"What is the optimal solution to this? Perhaps a socialist state where the basic needs are met and the pay is just for wants? Would it be efficient enough? Is there enough to go around, or must some people inevitably starve? "
What happens in this situation is a large part of your former workforce has their basic needs accomodated, so they decide they no longer need to work. Who will now generate the food, clothing, and shelter to allow these people to survive. There's little incentive to work unless you offer huge incentives (and who will pay for those incentives) or force these people to work assigned jobs. The Soviet Union tried the latter strategy.
"Of course they're saving money! Right now they're paying them 50% of what they pay others, so obviously they're saving money! (/sarcasm) This is the same kind of thinking that makes people think it's a good idea to shop at Wal-Mart: Sure, those jeans are $5 less than they are anywhere else, but they last half as long. So you end up with a worse value over the life of the product, but it's cheaper NOW, so obviously it's better."
Assuming that an immigrant can't do the same job as a native worker shows predjudice. This is what you've implied with the WalMart analogy.
from the article: "As far as we can analyze, Microsoft made an agreement to enginner VCast Music phones as WMA-only devices, in order to lock out iTunes and other competition from most interaction with the device that does not involve burning, ripping, and integrating into Windows Media Player. This type of monopolist tatic is something that iTunes has avoided, but Windows Media Player embraces."
Apple has used every tactic avaliable to lock in their music monopolies. Their iPods don't support WMA, even though the hardware they use does support it. They don't license their fairplay DRM to anyone else to allow competitors to sell DRMed music for iPod users. To say Apple is acting any better than Microsoft is a lie.
"Do you think the content provider in this case would price the content lower than the Apple price? If that's the case I would gladly support variable pricing. But my guess is, that WONT be the case. I guess it's become a matter of "lesser of the evils"."
If you're not going to let content providers charge what they think a song is worth, you may as well download illegal copies. You've already denied them their freedom.
"Surprised no one is complaining about the variable pricing. Now the greedy music/movie industry can rip us off with variable pricing and they now have a competitor to threaten Apple with. Hope things don't go that way!"
Variable pricing makes sense. Why should a company like Apple or Google have the power to decide what a video or a song is worth? The content provider owns the material. That person has the exclusive right to charge what he thinks a song or video is worth. The ditributor only has the right to tack on his fee in addition to the content cost. Apple claiming that every song is worth $0.99 is the essentially price fixing. They're leveraging their monopoly in the online music distribution market to dictate the value of songs they didn't even create.
"Apple doesn't support other companies' propreitary DRM systems and it's their fault?"
No, as I said before, Apple refuses to license their proprietary DRM scheme to 3rd parties so they can make DRMed music files that work on iPod. There's nothing wrong with that, but now when another company refuses to license their technology to Apple, Apple starts suing. In short, Apple is hypocritical.
"1. Apple developed the iPod, iTunes and FairPlay to all work seemlessly together. Other companies want in, but Apple wants to provide the complete solution alone. Nothing wrong there. (Think of Ford crying foul if they wanted to use Ferrari engines. Ferrari's not obligated to let Ford use their engines.)"
Huh? Since when does anyone on/. advocate a closed proprietary system that doesn't interoperate with anyone elses technology.
"2. Burst.com thinks that Apple is infringing on their patents, so they hit up Apple for a license. Apple thinks their patents are bogus."
Not exactly. Apple wanted to license their technology, but couldn't reach an agreement. So now their suing to invalidate the patents so they can create the same technology. Almost exactly what happended with Apple and RealNetworks.
"Doesn't strike me to be anywhere close to being the same."
Apple refuses to license their technology to allow others to sell DRMed music that plays on iPod. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they're whining about it.
Slashdot Mirror
"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."
I don't buy any music from Apple. I need to use iTunes to upload songs to my iPod, however. Apple is the one that needs to deal with reality and respect my privacy by asking me first before attempting to download information from my computer. Otherwise I'll go buy something from iRiver or Creative next time.
"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."
There's a big difference between Amazon using information you voluntarily gave them, and Apple uploading information on your computer without asking you whether or not it was ok.
"Considering that your case consists of 'probably,' 'wouldn't you think,' wild guesses and assumptions with no basis in reality and which in fact stand in opposition to the established facts, surely your case is the ill-made one?"
The only established fact is that when MiniStore is on Apple collects data on the music you're playing. Until today there was not even a statement by Apple as to what was done with the data, aside from the obvious. These are reasonable questions to ask. They are not at all in opposition to the established facts. Even today all we have is Apple's word they aren't storing the data. Where do they get the data to correlate songs you're listening to with songs you might like, BTW?
"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 ... "
Walgreens doesn't have a camera in my house that sends data back to them to determine and remind me that I'm out of aspirin.
"If you are using a service, RTFM and then go read the FAQ. Bonus advice: turn off auto-updating on non-critical applications."
I shouldn't have to read every manual and EULA to install or update software. I should at least expect Apple to ask me before sending my private data home. When people found out that Microsoft was sending their computer system hardware and configuration details to MS for diagnostic purposes, people were rightfully outraged. Now MS asks you in a dialog box. I don't excuses about how it's harmless. Just fix the problem and stop pretending it isn't one.
"How is this different from them tracking your browsing habits in the music store?"
In your example, you're sending data to their computer. iTunes is spyware because it's taking data from your computer without asking if it's ok.
"How is this different from them making recommendations based on your past purchases?"
See above. Same answer.
It is spyware.
"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."
The point is, even if you do this, once you rip the cd, Apple knows you have it. You didn't even buy the music from them. iTunes is the only official interface to your iPod for music the iPod plays.
Now when they spike trees, they can collect energy as well!
BTW, quoting volts is useless. You need to quote power numbers to determine how much energy can be extracted.
Even if a KV was produced, if only a pA of current flows into your load, that's not a whole lot of energy.
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.
"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?
"What is it doing that is malicious?
Spyware, sure, but not malware."
Spyware is by definition malware. Just because there is an apparent obvious use doesn't mean there aren't other things Apple could do with this data. They could sell it to record labels. They could identify tracks that are probably obtained illegally, etc.
"How different and onerous is this compared to the Amazon "people who have purchased this also have purchased ...," feature?"
It's far worse because Amazon didn't look through data on my computer that's private to make their suggestions. Amazon is using their own information based on pruchases made at their site. Their not mining people's song collections for data.
"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."
Prove it. I don't believe you.
"Giving up, indeed, is lame.
What are your goals, and what is your strategy?"
The goal is to not have companies collect information on your computer and send it to their servers without specifically asking you first. The strategy is to publicly expose companies that do and boycott their software until they change their ways.
"Uh, no. By my logic the sign would be big and in bold type (like on apples website) and hanging in the window. But my guess is people like you wouldn't read it anyway, and would whine when they got punched.
It's not hidden at all. Take a look at http://www.apple.com/itunes/playlists/"
Ah no. you've linked to a page buried deep in the Apple website that no one reads. That hardly qualifies as big and bold type in the front window.
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.
"It's going to hurt Spielberg very little in the long run, but it's still very annoying to him all the same- and it's over paranoia about "piracy"..."
/. crowd that's in denial. They've even considered stopping screeners altogether since they invariably end up on the p2p sites.
Why do people call people who worry about piracy paranoid when it is a real problem. It's the
"What is the optimal solution to this? Perhaps a socialist state where the basic needs are met and the pay is just for wants? Would it be efficient enough? Is there enough to go around, or must some people inevitably starve?
"
What happens in this situation is a large part of your former workforce has their basic needs accomodated, so they decide they no longer need to work. Who will now generate the food, clothing, and shelter to allow these people to survive. There's little incentive to work unless you offer huge incentives (and who will pay for those incentives) or force these people to work assigned jobs. The Soviet Union tried the latter strategy.
"Of course they're saving money! Right now they're paying them 50% of what they pay others, so obviously they're saving money! (/sarcasm) This is the same kind of thinking that makes people think it's a good idea to shop at Wal-Mart: Sure, those jeans are $5 less than they are anywhere else, but they last half as long. So you end up with a worse value over the life of the product, but it's cheaper NOW, so obviously it's better."
Assuming that an immigrant can't do the same job as a native worker shows predjudice. This is what you've implied with the WalMart analogy.
from the article:
"As far as we can analyze, Microsoft made an agreement to enginner VCast Music phones as WMA-only devices, in order to lock out iTunes and other competition from most interaction with the device that does not involve burning, ripping, and integrating into Windows Media Player. This type of monopolist tatic is something that iTunes has avoided, but Windows Media Player embraces."
Apple has used every tactic avaliable to lock in their music monopolies. Their iPods don't support WMA, even though the hardware they use does support it. They don't license their fairplay DRM to anyone else to allow competitors to sell DRMed music for iPod users. To say Apple is acting any better than Microsoft is a lie.
"Do you think the content provider in this case would price the content lower than the Apple price? If that's the case I would gladly support variable pricing. But my guess is, that WONT be the case. I guess it's become a matter of "lesser of the evils"."
If you're not going to let content providers charge what they think a song is worth, you may as well download illegal copies. You've already denied them their freedom.
"Surprised no one is complaining about the variable pricing. Now the greedy music/movie industry can rip us off with variable pricing and they now have a competitor to threaten Apple with. Hope things don't go that way!"
Variable pricing makes sense. Why should a company like Apple or Google have the power to decide what a video or a song is worth? The content provider owns the material. That person has the exclusive right to charge what he thinks a song or video is worth. The ditributor only has the right to tack on his fee in addition to the content cost. Apple claiming that every song is worth $0.99 is the essentially price fixing. They're leveraging their monopoly in the online music distribution market to dictate the value of songs they didn't even create.
"Apple doesn't support other companies' propreitary DRM systems and it's their fault?"
No, as I said before, Apple refuses to license their proprietary DRM scheme to 3rd parties so they can make DRMed music files that work on iPod. There's nothing wrong with that, but now when another company refuses to license their technology to Apple, Apple starts suing. In short, Apple is hypocritical.
"1. Apple developed the iPod, iTunes and FairPlay to all work seemlessly together. Other companies want in, but Apple wants to provide the complete solution alone. Nothing wrong there. (Think of Ford crying foul if they wanted to use Ferrari engines. Ferrari's not obligated to let Ford use their engines.)"
/. advocate a closed proprietary system that doesn't interoperate with anyone elses technology.
Huh? Since when does anyone on
"2. Burst.com thinks that Apple is infringing on their patents, so they hit up Apple for a license. Apple thinks their patents are bogus."
Not exactly. Apple wanted to license their technology, but couldn't reach an agreement. So now their suing to invalidate the patents so they can create the same technology. Almost exactly what happended with Apple and RealNetworks.
"Doesn't strike me to be anywhere close to being the same."
The two cases are very similar
Apple refuses to license their technology to allow others to sell DRMed music that plays on iPod. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they're whining about it.