The spy monitors the music we play on our computers, sending details back to the company’s mothership. Then, on our desktops, Apple places tailored adverts for similar songs to download from its online music store.
The tool Apple calls its new Mini Store is buried in what we’ll now call its “SpyTunes” software. It snoops not only on tracks purchased from iTunes, but on your entire music collection. Until last week, this innocent-looking download, suddenly and without warning, opened a discourse with the outside world.
It was a crass marketing move for Apple to steal onto our computers uninvited. It may be tolerable for Amazon to pigeonhole you by what you have bought in the past, but Apple’s ruse feels like Richard Branson stepping into your living room to sell you an airline ticket every time you view your holiday photos.
Apple arrogantly declined to comment, other than to stress that it doesn’t retain the information it gathers, and that the Mini Store could simply be turned off. Experts say this stops the program calling home.
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After a right pasting from the online community, Apple has now decided to explain the new function in a pop-up window during installation, and offer you the option to turn it off. We urge you to do so, unless you enjoy being bombarded by marketing.
“This is a step in the right direction,” says Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “but Apple still hasn’t met its customers eye to eye.”
The real question is why Apple took an intrusive path at all. There are arguments to justify such abuses of privacy, which range from targeted advertising being for your benefit, through to it being your responsibility to monitor your own computer. None of them stands up.
Keeping e-diseases off our computers is hard enough without fending off “responsible” companies. What is most surprising is the stupidity of Apple’s decision to sully its Mr Nice Guy image for the chance of a few bucks.
Back in 1999, a public outcry led to RealNetworks amending a version of its audio player that reported users’ listening habits without consent. Doors repeatedly took the same company to task over the marketing nasties built into its later media player. Only last year, Sony was forced to withdraw CDs that installed covert software on computers. Did Apple really think that nobody would mind its ploy? Monitoring web habits is hardly new. Your computer is riddled with cookies, some of which make it easier to surf favourite sites; some help trigger Amazon’s targeted offers. The difference is that the bookseller is tracking the way you navigate its website, whereas Apple is poring over the contents of your music library.
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With similar aims, Gmail makes clear that your mail will be scanned by robots so that Google can target adverts to you. The difference is in being upfront about its eavesdropping: Gmail gives you a huge chunk of free storage, and you agree for your inbox to become a company sandwich board.
In the offline world, similar ways of collecting information abound — airline, supermarket and petrol-station loyalty cards, for example. As the net matures, marketeers are pursuing their landgrab online. Apple, too, has evidently abandoned its touchy-feely ideals to run with the dogs in the aggressive mainstream. It must expect the loyalty of its fans to waver.