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Apple’s iTunes MiniStore now asks for permission before operating

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 · 1:23 pm · 18 Comments

“A controversial feature in Apple’s recently updated iTunes v6.0.2 is the iTunes MiniStore, which tries to make suggestions for what to buy from the iTunes Music Store based on you’re listening to. Now the MiniStore will only operate if you give it permission first,” Peter Cohen reports for Playlist. “The iTunes MiniStore appears below the song list area in the main iTunes window.”

“Users who have the MiniStore pane active in iTunes now see the following: ‘The iTunes MiniStore allows you to discover new music and videos right from your iTunes Library. As you select items in your Library, information about that item is sent to Apple and the MiniStore will show you related songs or videos. Apple does not keep any information related to the contents of your music Library. Would you like to turn on the MiniStore now?’ A button then provides users with the ability to activate the feature. An arrow also shows users how they can turn the MiniStore on or off whenever they want by clicking a button on the iTunes interface,” Cohen reports.

Full article here.

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Related article:
Critics say Apple snooping on users via new ITunes ‘MiniStore’ feature – January 13, 2006

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Comment Feed

18 Comments

Nick

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:33 pm · Reply

way for Apple to quickly take care of that.
Ampar

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:34 pm · Reply

Whew! Thank goodness. I could barely sleep at night.
Ampar

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:35 pm · Reply

Please return to Defcon level five at once.
Bandit Bill

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:41 pm · Reply

Good move Apple.
Stupid move to have initially implemented it.
more of an annoyance

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:41 pm · Reply

after i download 6.02 i had a wtf is this moment, that wasn’t there before. i found it to be more annoying than prying. it was easy to turn off once i found the “hide ministore” under edit menu. glad to see that apple has changed this and doesn’t assum that users actually want to have this active all the time.
Eh... not so much

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:56 pm · Reply

I talked about this with my husband, and we both agree that a little bit of spyware that doesn’t harm your computer and actually provides a small benefit is much better than, say, playing a CD on your computer and getting nasty rootkit installed without your knowledge. I was hoping for a system where iTunes could read my ratings and suggest more songs I might like. It doesn’t make sense for me to have to re-rate all my songs on something like Last.fm if I’ve already got them rated in iTunes.

That said, they should have handled the rollout better, something similar to Google Toolbar. When you install it, it tells you right out that if you want to use their advanced features, it will send info back to their server. But before you continue installing it, it gives you that choice to opt out or use the advanced services. Apple should have used a similar model.
scottschor

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 2:57 pm · Reply

From: Ampar — Please return to Defcon level five at once.

This made me spit my soda on the keyboard. Very funny.
Peter

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 3:04 pm · Reply

“Good move Apple. Stupid move to have initially implemented it.”

Eh. I’m not all that convinced. That’s one way I find music is looking at the “what other people bought.” So, in that aspect, it’s kind of nice. I was doing some iTMS surfing last night and was just thinking about that feature.

But one reason I have yet to download 6.0.2 is this issue. I think it was poor form on Apple’s part to even create a question in people’s minds about how the information about what you’re listening to is used by Apple.
finelinebob

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 3:08 pm · Reply

I can’t remember what the previous version of the MiniStore was called — the one that offered suggestions based only on your purchases — but I was one user who sent a comment to Apple saying that my purchases were NOT characteristic of my entire library and if they really wanted to give me suggestions, they needed to base them on my library and not my purchases. I’m sure that Apple didn’t make the change between the MiniStore and its previous incarnation on my recommendation alone, but on a fairly vocal response along those lines.

Being involved in online marketing, one thing is clear to me: consumer behaviors are going to be tracked no matter what the consumer wants. It just doesn’t pay not to track this info. Although this sort of information can spawn nuisances, legitimate uses of it actually serve consumers’ interests by allowing merchants the ability to target ads/promotions/messages to people who have shown a past interest in the topic of the message.

On <a >Slashdot</a> today is a story about a <a >new HTML attribute Mozilla is introducing</a> that will “ping” tracking servers so that redirect links don’t need to be used. The purpose overall is to get merchants the info they need without inconveniencing consumers with the added time redirected pages can take to load. There is some interesting discussion in both places about whether this HTML “feature” should be something users can disable or not.

Bottom line: don’t fool yourself into thinking you have privacy if you shop online. You don’t. And the only choice you have is to surrender your privacy or choose not to shop online. In the same vein, merchants don’t have to sell to you if you refuse to offer your demographic data (but most have more sense not to turn away a dollar). So either don’t shop online or educate yourself about what reasonable steps are being taken that serve both consumer and merchant needs and get behind those.
Eric The Red

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 3:15 pm · Reply

All this privacy bunk…

There’s safety in numbers… The chances that someone’s going to give a crap about your life info with the billions of transactions daily is infinitely small compared to not buckling your seatbelt.
We are setting up base camp

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 3:16 pm · Reply

half way up this molehill. We’re hoping to make the summit by Friday.
Needed Album Art

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 3:23 pm · Reply

The mini store helped me in a big way…

I needed album art for my 10,000 song library and have been using http://tpemble.urfbownd.net/itunes/itunes-art-style.php
I started adding the art a few days before the .0.2 release. Now with the mini store I can just right click the album at the bottom of the screen instead of going into the store. I can work twice as fast.

Other than that, it’s kinda cool to see what other CD’s by the artists I like are on the iTMS.
The Other Steve

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 3:35 pm · Reply

Thanks Ampar! Now cleaning up my soda.
MacMania

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 5:15 pm · Reply

Ampar said: “Whew! Thank goodness. I could barely sleep at night.
Please return to Defcon level five at once.”

The very thought!
MacMania

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 5:18 pm · Reply

Of course we all know this new info is only disinformation. A typical spy tactic.

Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourselves:
http://www.leedberg.com/mad/spies/spies.html
LordRobin

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 5:26 pm · Reply

What I find cool is how they were able to “fix” this on the server side, without requiring any new downloads. The first thing I thought when I read this was that I’d have to download iTunes again. Nope, it’s all taken care of.
Ampar

Wednesday, January 18, 2006 - 6:24 pm · Reply

I will not be held responsible for soda soaked keyboards or monitors. And don’t eat your nano.
That is all.

P.S. Is it o.k. to bring white chocolate into New Orleans? Just curious.
Mystical

Thursday, January 19, 2006 - 12:38 am · Reply

How was the mini store different than what Google Adds does. Its just an add as placement as far as i’m concern. And i turned it off, if i want to see the different albums by the artist i’m listening to i just turn it back on.