Invasive iTunes

The new release of iTunes has caused a bit of a stir. If you haven’t updated iTunes to version 6.0.2 yet, the big difference is the addition of a new pane to the main window. The pane contains the MiniStore. This is content from the iTunes Music Store such as links to buy singles, albums, view playlists etc. The main concern is that as you select music to play in iTunes, the MiniStore content changes to reflect what is playing e.g. it advertises music by the same artist and other relevant content.

As Apple has to send data about your listening habits back to the servers to update the MiniStore content, the new version of iTunes is, technically, spyware and adware. I can see how this raises concerns about privacy, but it’s really no different to the activity performed by the cookies on Amazon. I think the concerns are little exaggerated. After all, you can always disable the MiniStore in a few easy steps (although admittedly, it is always on by default).

I think we’ll see more and more ‘aggressive’ activity by Apple in pushing sales through iTunes. Digital music has proven to be the saviour of Apple in recent years and it was always inevitable that they’d have to step up marketing to stay ahead.

Posted 4 years, 1 month ago

Looks like Apple have changed it so that you now have to opt in to get the Ministore:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/18/apple_changes_itunes.html

Matt · www · 4 years, 1 month ago

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My name is Phil Lindsay, a web guy from Scotland, now living in Newcastle upon Tyne in England. I also run a web design company called Presence. You can email me at phil@xlab.co.uk, read more ramblings on my Twitter stream and view my photos on Flickr. You can grab the RSS feed for this weblog here.