by Mike Shea on 7 June 2007
Below is a letter I sent to the Free Times in response to their article on privacy concerns related to iTunes DRM-Free music. They are only one of at least three hundred news articles, according to Google News, related to these "privacy concerns".
In your article "Apple's DRM-Free Tracks Come with Caveats" you say:
"Apple is permanently attaching the purchasers name and email address to every download for everyone to see."
Please tell me how my user id (not my name) and my email address is available to everyone when I download an iTuens track straight to my laptop from iTunes.
I'm not supposed to give the song away anyway and I can edit the metadata to remove it if I really don't want it. It isn't permanent and it isn't available to everyone.
Apple removing DRM from selected tracks is the biggest improvement to online music sales since it began. Articles like yours threatens these improvements and confuses an issue that isn't an issue at all. There is no more of a privacy issue here than there is with an email coming to me from Amazon with my user id, name, and address in it.
Do a better job reporting the facts and spend less time trying to sensationalize.
Mike Shea