Snooping fears plague new iTunes

News Type: none — Seeded on Fri Jan 13, 2006 8:24 AM EST

Article Source: BBC News

In the wake of the scandalous use of rootkits, Apple comes under fire for possible privacy violations with its iTunes music player. The latest version includes a mini store that dynamically refreshes to show you relevant information linked to the song you are currently playing. The data sent back to Apple not only contains song information but also unique computer and iTunes identifiers. Apple says that no information is stored and that turning off the mini store stops the transfer, but privacy advocates complain that not enough was done to inform the public about this new change.

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Stuart Forsyth's Column, All of Newsvine
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{"commentId":6842,"authorDomain":"dungbeetlemania"}

dungbeetlemania

This is an interesting consequence of the information society - big business has always been underhand when there's extra money to be made, but when it involves information transfer it can be seen (if you know where to look). The recent spate of root kits ect. leads me to suspect that this kind of behaviour is probably endemic, and a couple of high-profile and damaging court cases will have companies not yet caught scrabbling to clean up their act, much like the Enron et al accounting scandles of a few years ago.

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#1 - Fri Jan 13, 2006 9:12 AM EST

{"commentId":6847,"authorDomain":"since1968"}

since1968

Chiron, thanks for linking to this story. I'm the Marc Garrett mentioned by the BBC. What they missed--and what strikes me as the much more important issue--is that iTunes not only phones home to Apple it also sends data to Omniture, a third party marketing firm. More here.

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#2 - Fri Jan 13, 2006 9:26 AM EST

{"commentId":7294,"authorDomain":"ThoughtMenagerie"}

Stuart Forsyth

Hey Marc, that is really not fair play. Not only are they aware that they are breaking the opening lines of the disclaimer and I quote "Apple takes your privacy very seriously. Be assured that Apple does not sell or rent your contact information to other marketers." but someone is aware that this is not above board by trying to disguise the url to look like a local network address. What were they thinking? Do companies like Apple and Sony feel that billion dollar turnover gives them the right to act with this level of indiscretion?

Thanks for the comment, very informative and gives me a lot of ammo for coming posts.

{"commentId":7294,"threadId":"23865","contentId":"57888","authorDomain":"ThoughtMenagerie"}

#3 - Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:18 AM EST

{"commentId":7296,"authorDomain":"ThoughtMenagerie"}

Stuart ForsythDeleted

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STUART FORSYTH

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Snooping fears plague new iTunes

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