apple-iphone-381219_640On the day that Apple unveiled the new iPhone 6, they ended the show with what they thought would surely be the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae. They announced that they were giving a free copy of U2's latest album to every iTunes subscriber. It immediately shattered all music records in history; half a billion copies of the album in the hands of music fans worldwide. Up until that moment, there had never been anything even approaching this scope and scale of a music release, and there never will be again.

However, far from being the icing on the cake as Apple had hoped, the company is now furiously backpedaling, and offering users a way to get rid of the free gift. At first glance, you might be surprised by the sudden reversal, and the outrage that it sparked, but on closer inspection, it does leave you with an unsettling feeling.

The Implications

Simply put, the implications of the intrusion are staggering. Here, we have a tech company pushing software onto the privately owned devices of literally hundreds of millions of consumers. Without asking, they pushed this album onto your playlist. Forget the fact that not everyone likes, or even cares about U2, a band that hasn't been relevant for years. Forget the fact that they didn't take into account user music preferences based on past download history, or attempt to make any sort of distinction when ramming the file through. If you can, even forget about the fact that many of those half billion customers are on limited data plans, and this album being installed on their system may have put them over their monthly usage.

It's The Privacy Thing Again

If you can ignore all of that, you're still left with the big privacy issue. The scope of the overreach is staggering. We all know, of course, that record labels haven't had any significant power for years, and perhaps even decades. All the power now resides in the hands of giant tech companies, who if they choose, can simply arbitrarily pick artistic winners and losers. If the CEO of a giant company personally likes a given group, they win, and that company can forcibly download the files onto your device, whether you want it or not. But why stop at music? What about apps? If you don't like it, want it or need it, tough.

Even worse, imagine the nightmare scenario of a company falling victim to a bug like Shellshock, and losing control of all its servers. The hackers now in control could literally push anything they wanted on to hundreds of millions of devices, and not only is there nothing you could do about it, those hackers could ensure that there would be no way for you to be rid of it, short of just tossing your smartphone in the garbage and buying a new one.

You can bet that no other company will be attempting anything of this sort ever again. As it stands, U2 is the only band in history to have released an album that came with uninstall instructions and an apology. It's too late though on one front. The move just gave the hackers of the world a powerful new goal to shoot for, and you know they'd just love the ability to force install the malware of their choice on half a billion systems with the touch of a button.