Apple announced DRM-free iTunes earlier this month at MacWorld, which in part means that tracks downloaded from iTunes will work on other players.  But there are still lots of details about the new DRM-free tracks to pay attention to.

Amongst them:  it costs money to transfer existing purchases to DRM-free tracks, you can’t choose to upgrade just a part of your current iTunes collection – it’s all or nothing.  But perhaps the most distressing part of the DRM-free iTunes tracks still contain personal information about yourself, namely the email address that you use with iTunes.

I’m not sure how to feel about this.  I still believe that Apple’s move was largely one of fashion: DRM is un-cool, and Apple is all about selling hip consumer products.  I also believe that Apple was trying to improve the experience for users, which seems to be a part of their core beliefs as a company.  But I’m not sure what Apple’s aim is by including the email address in their iTunes tracks.  This appears to be a left-over piece of tracking information that has been noticed since 2007.  I suspect that the goal of including the email address in the iTunes track is to identify if you’re a repeat broad-sharing offender: someone who buys tracks from iTunes and then shares them frequently with others.  But what happens if your laptop gets stolen, or if someone you know and share files with gets their data taken from them?  I wonder how Apple might approach situations like that.

In a way, it seems like Apple has potentially gone further in transferring the responsibility of preventing file sharing from themselves to the consumer.  I’m not sure how that will play out with consumers if that turns out to be accurate.

[More iTunes details at CNET News]

Filed under: Apple, Consumer Web, Privacy