The TV Gazes Also into You

The makers of über-VCR TiVo have just announced that they're going to be selling aggregate information about their customers' viewing habits. What I'm wondering is: will the data include the box's speculations about your sexual orientation?

Comments

[Anonymous]

In Soviet Russia, TiVo programs you!!

[Franklin Harris]

I always knew that one episode of "Queer as Folk" would come back to haunt me.

[Charlie]

TiVo will sell *aggregate* information, by zip code or age or whatever. So fear not.

Our TiVo (one of the older ones) has a weird quirk: it decides we like certain kinds of shows, and then obsessively records them. It started last summer with Westerns, and filled up all of our extra space with old westerns. We had never recorded a western and did not give favorable ratings to any westerns.

Then, it switched to News shows, and each night we'd have "News at 9," "International News Hour," and random hour-long snippets of Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and CNN.

Both of these were just annoyances, but lately TiVo has decided that we love softcore porn, and it records late night Cinemax/Showtime movies a couple times a week. Again, we have never recorded or given a thumbs-up to any of these movies, and never even (as far as I know, unless my wife is keeping secrets) watched them.

What's the point to this story? I guess there isn't one. We just get a kick out of TiVo's compulsions.

[Plutarck]

Charlie: Your TiVo's activities sound like the last six years of my life.

...not really, but I thought that a tad amusing.

[Charlie]

Don't be too comfortable because TiVo is simply selling "aggregate" information. With only 700k users nationwide and a cross reference to list of people with known interests and demographics, you can be identified very easily.

Encroachments on privacy should be considered in terms of the total amount of information out there, and professional snoops, marketers, etc. can be quite sophisticated in collecting and filtering it.

BTW, my TiVo thinks you're gay, too.

[Will]

Ahhh.. Tivo, wave of the future. I'd have a Tivo if they didn't charge a monthly fee. I'm one of those television snobs who "doesn't really watch tv" - yet I keep it around (sercretly just for when things blow up or crash.)

Anyway - I'm wondering... if Tivo is selling information about my viewing habbits, does that mean that the monthly service fee will be lower? Somehow, I think not.

Tivo is ultmatly doomed - the technology itself is just too cheap and easy to replicate... already there are home-brew Tivo solutions for people who are computer/tech savvy... and this underground and competing product market will only grow.

Don't get me wrong - I'm VERY impressed with Tivo's ability to completely morph a household's television viewing habbits - freeing people completely from time slots and commercials. But it's not going to last - coporate America won't allow it. Already AOLTIMEWARNER have lodged protests against technology that allows consumers (viewers) to skip past commercials...

[Will]

Also I just want to say that I predicted over a year or two ago that Tivo would eventually start mining it's user base for profit. It only makes sense... demographic info is hot and viewership data doublely so.

I also predict that the rise of Tivo like products will drasticaly change television viewership over the coming years. Perhaps one day we will have television shows that run without commercials in the traditional sense, but have clickable banner ads and scrollers at the top and bottom... this would effectivly defeat Tivo users fast forwarding through commercials.

Further - there may even be a push by the industry to prevent Tivo (and Tivo like products) that allow consumers to fast forward though commercials.

Tivo is doomed as a company - but the idea (and technology) will revolutionize television viewing for the next decade or more.

[Stel]

Hmmm... I dropped my cable a while back... and ya know what, I don't miss it. I think this is what the networks really have to watch out for: People realizing they DON'T need TV to survive! TIVO is here and they may as well accept it and embrace it, as it does give a new dimension to TV viewing. I think the ad banner mentioned above may well be the wave of the future for TV. (then we get to buy TV sets that block ad banners, so they have pop-ups on the tv.... then we buy TV's that block pop-ups... so then we buy... etc......).......

[omnibus bill]

How could any good Libertarian be upset about this?

It's a free market. You don't have to get TiVo. You don't like them selling your information, go buy something else.

I think what they are doing is actually a good thing. They've discovered a new product to sell, and created a market for it. Out of nothing, something.

If you wanted to limit this practice, you'd have to insist on a non-disclosure clause in your service contract... Or perhaps ask the government to regulate it.

[Joe Dokes]

Hey Will,

Like you I liked the Idea of TIVO but hated the idea of yet another monthly bill, you know ten buck here, ten bucks there, pretty soon you're in bankruptcy. The solution is Dish Network, they offer two different PVR (personal video recorders) One a sixty hour and one an eighty hour. Neither require the obnoxioius subscription (beyond what you pay for the satellite service itself) (on Direct TV it is a $5.00 monthly fee) If you go Dish you can tell the local cable monopoly to get F*&^ked. and get your PVR.

Believe it or not the most useful feature is the ability to back up in five second increments, nice for the hearing impaired, "what did he say?" Also nice is the ability to pause live tv so you can talk to your buddy instead of saying, hey I'm watching TV I'll call you back when it's over.

My wife and I like it so much we are going to add one for the TV in the bedroom. As far as DISH selling our data, to advertisers I haven't heard anything, but if I do, it might affect my view of the company.

P.S. No I don't work for Dish Network. I just happen to like the product enough to tell others.

Sorry for the advertisement, does this count as SPAM?
I hope not.

Regards

Joe

[Zev Sero]

You don't have to pay TiVo's monthly fee if you don't want to use the TV-guide feature. You can still pause and rewind live TV, watch a program while it's recording, etc, and the fact that you've got an 80-hour disk instead of an 8-hour tape, but you'll have to set programs to record to the old-fashioned way, by finding the correct date time and channel in the paper TV guide, and entering them yourself, and then hope that the network doesn't change its mind. Then again, when networks change their minds they're not very good about letting TiVo know about it, so often the paid TiVo service misses these changes too.

You can also pay once for the device's lifetime, instead of paying monthly. If you're planning on keeping the thing for more than about a year, it's worth it.

[Anonymous]

Charlie, what you got against the Eastwood squint?

[block pop ups]

Anyone know where I can read up on more info on this