Kirkville - The iTunes MiniStore Debacle: What Apple Did Wrong
So the problem here is two-fold: first, Apple added a feature (which many people may appreciate) designed to increase their revenue stream. However, they did not tell users what type of information is being sent and where (at least the song name and artist are being sent when you click on a song, but there is also a cookie being sent, and no one has yet explained the purpose and content of this cookie). A simple warning dialog at first launch might have resolved this problem. (And, since the license does not even grant Apple the right to "obtain" this information from users' computers, there may be legal issues that should have been addressed.)Like Cory, Kirk correctly identifies Apple's big mistake here: not telling customers what the MiniStore was doing (ie, collecting data about clicks on songs in your personal iTunes library), where that data was going, and how to opt out.
Second, this information is being processed by another company, Omniture, which is a marketing company, and no one knows what they do with it. While Apple claims to not "collect" any information, what does Omniture do with this information, and why is some information sent to metrics.apple.com?
Kirk also voices a suspicion of the whole Omniture thing, and that's understandable. It's almost more nefarious-appearing when he casts Ominture as a "marketing" company. Omniture's just a web analytics firm; they collect clickstream data on behalf of clients (like Apple -- your visits to Apple, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart sites are tracked by Omniture). Having worked for an Omniture competitor, I can tell you that web analytics firms don't do anything with that data except make it available to the customer. For instance, the company I worked for used to collect web analytics data for MTV, United Airlines, Fox News, and the Economist. There was never any sharing of data between the companies, nor did we ever mine that data for any reason. That data was for the exclusive use of our customers.
metrics.apple.com seems to be the iTMS metrics collection engine, passing clickstream and download data from users' clicks in the iTMS. Since iTunes is essentially a customized browser designed to work with the iTMS servers, I suppose Apple had to create their own method of collecting behavioral data for iTMS sessions, rather than just rolling out a standard web analytics service.
What's more interesting is that iTunes MiniStore seems to be passing your Apple ID/iTMS account along with your library click behavior. This means that Apple could potentially relate your clicks within your library to your purchasing data, your address (in as much as you've given Apple a billing address), and whatever other information they can associate with your Apple ID. A question comes to mind: what happens if you're not logged into your iTMS account while clicking around your library? Does the MiniStore pass the click data back anyway?
