>But this cannot be a long term issue, Apple is too >high profile a company
Actually, it probably will be a long term issue. What will change is, when you start iTunes the first time, it will say in the license agreement (which no one reads) that your playlist data is being sent back to Apple, and that no user identifiable data is included. Also that Apple has the right to share the data with anyone they please. This kind of usage data is VERY important to Apple for them to properly track and plan marketing of music, movies and anything else they may sell via their store. Apple wants the data, and they will find a way to get it. Like I said, this is the norm, not the exception. It is a pretty safe bet that if a company can mine any data about your habits, they will and do. It is also a pretty safe bet that this data will be shared with anyone the company pleases. We don't have privacy, anyone that thinks we do doesn't understand what is going on in the corporate world. The most we get is that info about us is not always linked to us directly (or at all). In other words, every company you deal with tracks info about your dealings with them, but not every company tracks that info in a way that can point back to you. So they know that 30 customers this month bought product x, but they don't know that YOU bought product x. Alas, too many companies DO track data linked to the person, so they DO know that YOU bought product x. And too many of the companies are not clear if and when they link data in a personal manner. Apple will continue to harvest the data, they will very likely stop (if they are doing it at all), linking the data to customer specific records. But that even may not be true, it depends on what kind of direct marketing they may want to do. >Banks and credit card companies are the worst offenders in this, not >computer/entertainment companies. Very true. If people only better understood that, then maybe the correct fears would be in the correct places. People worry about entertainment companies doing it, because they fear of either being caught doing something illegal, or "immoral", or in other ways be found doing things they don't want the world to know they do (ie: stay up late watching cinemax movies, or downloading an MP3, or using a pirate copy of MS Office). If they only realized that banks sharing information is far FAR more dangerous than anything the entertainment companies could (or even desire) to do. The entertainment companies don't actually care if YOU are watching something, they just care that people in general are watching. Banks on the other hand DO care about YOUR spending habits, and they will target people they know they can make serious money off of, with direct marketing, high pressure, and other crappy sales tactics to better entice people to spend well beyond their means. And that is just what the honest banks do. That doesn't get into what the dishonest people will do with the info they buy from the honest banks! Its a scary world out there! -chris <http://www.mythtech.net> ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
