Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bhauer 2876 days ago
Remember all of the data Winamp2 used to gather and send to third-party servers?
3 comments

It's weird how perception on these things has shifted. So many practices are "normal" today which used to be clearly labeled "spyware" only 15 years ago. They successfully rebranded spyware, now it's called "telemetry", or similar.

Anyone remember the huge privacy-related outrage when Windows XP came out, because it forced users to do challenge-response activation? How times have changed...

It might just be that all those people have switched to free software and aren't being vocal because of that?
Did it send anything? I don't know which way to interpret your question.

I imagine some info was sent if you played those shoutcast(?) video streams listed in the media library, lots of cartoon channels from what I remember.

Sorry, just a bit of silly sarcasm. It wasn't a data exfiltration and user surveillance system like modern music players.
I don't but I suspect such a business model would flourish. Does anyone have a link to their hiring page?