Is iTunes Spying on Me and Do I Care?

ITMS

http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2006/01/ministore/index.php?lsrc=mwrss

In this new version of iTunes, the main window displays the Ministore. When I lick on Fleetwood Mac’s “Goodbye Baby” it displays info about the CD the song is on, links to reviews and more offerings from FM and other similar bands that I might like.

This feature can easily be disabled but this irked some folks — their listening habits were being sent without their knowledge to Apple to make the correct info display in the Ministore. How many times have you listened to that same sad song, over and over again, in the deep dark, middle of the black ink night? Do you mind if Apple might know that? I really don’t mind.

Read the article above, because:

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.