[Nobody]

Real Networks was caught with it's Windows Real Jukebox sending such personally identifyable information on the user's CD habit. They claimed they weren't actually keeping track of it...

This old Old ZDNet article discusses it,

I found the Real Player X Beta End user License Agreement sufficiently disquieting that I haven't installed it. (They reserve the right to update software, in background, independent of whether Real Player is running, and with out without notifying you. This is, it says, to protect the integrity of the digital rights management software.) But that's not spyware, its hackware.

When you ask iTunes to fetch the track names for a CD, it should come as no surprise that it's reporting the CD name to Apple (or some affiliate.) The only question is does it throw in anything else with the message?

I'm curious what URL Limewire could report. Limewire doesn't have a browser in it, does it? It's a P2P file-swap program, right?

[Nobody]

iTunes does not send anything to Apple when you listen to music. A simple monitoring of network activity and packets will verify this.

[Nobody]

I'm pretty sure that it doesn't send anything to Apple even when you get track names for CDs. It's contacting the CDDB which is not a part of Apple in any way.

[JackMac]

When I updated my iTunes the report to the CDDB was a checkable option and not automatic. If left unchecked you wind up with a lot of "Track 1" etc. instead of titles.

[icerabbit]

Cresens

quote:

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Ever wonder where the "top 25" and "personal ratings" in iTunes came from? They are more than just iTunes features.

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I believe the top 25 is only based on the hit count of how many times a song plays. Nothing more. The personal ratings are so you can sort the songs you like best together.

That iTunes potentially would be hooked to .mac is a serious privacy risk IMO. Doesn't matter if you can turn it off or not, I wouldn't want to see Apple head that way.

ice

[Nobody]

Windows media player is spyware (even on OS X) though from what I've heard, limewire for OS X is not. I've neve rheard anything about itunes. The truth is, if you've ever downloaded a copyrighted song (you don't own), program, or downloaded pornography (either through p2p or from a website) someone (or some persons) already knows about it. I feel sorry for my roommate, because he is unaware aboout all of these things. He downloads porn and music without discretion (he uses a windows pc) and often gets stuck with media player files (not just porn in this case) that automatically launch explorer windows, and once that happens, his IP is obviously being logged on who knows how many different servers (it's a static IP). I'm not going to judge him for his habits (I don't think there is any reason to, few people have any right to judge others) but I've tried to inform him that what he thinks he is doing in private is really being shared with more people (or institutions) than he might be aware of.

[Nobody]

That goes for anything on the internet and has nothing to do with "spyware" per say. Every website you go to logs your IP address in it's server log along with other info such as web browser, OS and such. It's not exactly personal information and under normal circumstances nobody even bothers to use this info on an individual basis. However it is possible to track any site you visit back to you with access to your ISP and various web site server logs. Typically only the government would be able to acquire privelages to all of the above.