When you purchase music from the iTunes Media Store, that file is yours to preserve, as Apple does not track which songs you have purchased, and therefore does not allow you to re-download purchased songs that may have been deleted. The need to re-purchase lost songs has been the most frequent complaint I’ve heard about the iTMS. “Why don’t they just keep track of what I’ve bought, add it to a list somewhere, and make it available for me anytime?”
Last week, Apple released iTunes 6.0.2. It comes with a new, easily-disabled feature where iTunes will send information about a currently playing track to a server somewhere, and a response containing tracks from the iTMS that may also interest you is returned to, and subsequently displayed in, iTunes. Approximately 24 hours later, media outlets like Slashdot and some users had already branded iTunes “malware” because it sends information about your choice of music back to Apple.
So which is it? Do we want Apple to keep track of our choice of purchased music so we don’t have to re-purchase it, or do we want Apple to stay away from our tracks because it’s none of their business? We can’t have it both ways. In either case, Apple has the potential to tie listening habits to an individual account, although they don’t.
PS: The title of the Slashdot article, “iTunes is Malware?” is another one of those grammatical horrors I hate. It’s not a question just because it ends with a question mark. The correct form to make that sentence a question is, “Is iTunes Malware?” So close, and yet so wrong. In fact, the poster may have worded that headline badly to make the point that they consider iTunes malware in any case, but they need to appear somewhat more neutral to be taken seriously, so they tack a question mark on the end to make plausible the claim that it’s a question and not an opinion. Very sneaky, whether done purposely or subconsciously.
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