link: http://www.wired.com/news/reuters/0,1349,32244,00.html ----- >From Reuters... Real Snooping by RealNetworks RealNetwork's RealJukebox software monitors user listening habits and other activities, then sends the information and the user's identity to the company, The New York Times said. A security expert intercepted and examined information generated from the program, and company officials acknowledged that RealJukebox gathers information on what users are playing and recording, the Times said. RealJukebox is used to play compact discs on computers and can copy music to a user's hard drive and download music from the Internet. Dave Richards, RealNetworks' vice president for consumer products, told the Times the company gathered the information to customize service for individual users. He and other company officials said the practice did not violate consumer privacy because the data was not stored by the company or released to other companies. But privacy advocates and security experts agreed that it was a violation of the privacy of the 13.5 million registered users of RealJukebox, the Times said, particularly because RealNetworks has not informed consumers they are being identified and monitored. Richard Smith, an independent security consultant, said RealNetworks tracks the numbers of songs stored on a user's hard drive, the kind of file formats in which the songs are stored, the user's preferred genre of music, and the type of portable music player, if any, the user has connected to the computer. In addition, a personal serial number known as a globally unique identifier, or GUID, is also sent to RealNetworks, the paper said. The fact that RealNetworks gathers the information is not mentioned in the privacy policy posted on its Web site, the Times said, or the licensing agreement users must approve when installing RealJukebox. ------- AFLHI 058009990407128029/089802---(102598//991024) milis ini didukung oleh : >> http://www.indolinux.com - dunia linux indonesia ------------------------------------------------------------------- untuk berhenti kirim email ke [EMAIL PROTECTED] untuk melihat peraturan kirim email ke [EMAIL PROTECTED] arsip berada di http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
