iTunes Music Genius.iTunes.Apple.com Error Message

If you are an iTunes user, you must have probably experienced at least once an error message of the certificate for this server is invalid error while your iTunes is running on your computer. This error sometimes is conveyed as “unable to verify the identity of the server genius.itunes.apple.com. The certificate for this server is invalid.”
Upon checking on SSLShopper.com, it has been shown that the URL genius.itunes.apple.com comes with a valid SSL certificate as of 2021-04-13. However, upon checking the site, we got redirected to click.linksynergy.com whose certificate is owned by Rakuten (online shopping website) and their SSL certificate is also valid. Hence, the error message could be a result of a red herring. This mean, if you will try to open this site on Chrome Dev Tools, you will not find the information that you would be needing but rather you will be getting a bad merchant error message.
To solve this, all you would need to do is click Ok on the error message and you are good to go. The popup message goes away and everything would seem to be back to normal. Though that is the case, there are a few lingering questions that most of us probably have and they are – why does iTunes use Link Synergy and what is its purpose and why does it appear to be an affiliate marketing of Rakuten? These questions are just few that are difficult to find answers to but for sure, with information circulating around the net, only time would tell when we will be able to confirm answers.