Slashdot Mirror
ReplayTV To Track Viewing Habits
drwiii writes: "This article over at CNN talks about a deal between Nielsen and ReplayTV to develop technology to track time-shifted viewing habits. The ReplayTV unit doesn't have software to track viewing choices, but it looks like it'll be getting it now. The article also touches on Nielsen's relations with TiVo and Microsoft (WebTV)." Fantastic. Now I'll expect junk mail every time I linger a little too long over Buffy . I think that if these machines are going to be used for market research, the networks should pay the bill, and they should be free to everyone.
Quite what information is transmitted back-to-base over this link is unclear, although it's a safe bet they're tracking their slave^W customers' viewing habits.
What this really means is that TV will get more of the kind of adverts and programming which appeal to the drooling masses. Some would say this has already happened ;-).
I'm ditching my TV when they switch off the analogue transmitters in 10 years time.
I suppose the usual slashdot paranoids will come out and start whinging about privacy. But who really cares if some 15-year old linux zealot is watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Pokemon ? Does anyone care ?
This could also lead to quicker retirement of unpopular programs, meaning that we don't have to put up with rubbish for so long. I mean, wouldn't it be great if moronic shows like "Friends" had been canned after the first series because nobody was watching ?
Also maybe they would not have finished off Married with Children so quickly if they knew how many tech-savvy geeks with high disposable income were tuning in...
Think about it. This is a no-lose situation.
I actually have a replay box. It doesn't require a subscription or any type of registration with replaytv. This means that what replay will be tracking is simply my viewing habits blind. Replay knows the telephone number I'm calling from however.
I'll tell you, I sure as well have my viewing habits tracked to pick better TV than someone else. I'm personally sick of my favorite tv shows being canceled.
As long as I'm not blasted by more ads, I'm ok with it. The 25% ad time for TV today is a bit excessive as it is.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
In Europe, privacy is regulated: There are national and european laws detailing what can and can't be done with your personal profile.
The US approach is different and betting on self-regulation in the market. Self-regulation could work, if personal profiles were a thing you, the person being profiles, owned. That is not the case: Your profile is owned by anyone who care to profile you.
Markets can regulate anything that has a price. As long as your profile does not have a price, as long as companies do not need to pay for taking your profile, and as long as you can't sue them if they do without having a contract with you, self-regulation does not work.
© Copyright 2000 Kristian Köhntopp
I wouldn't mind them using demographic info, as long as it's only used in an aggregate form. I don't want my demographic info being associated with my identity. That begs for abuse. Targeting is going to be done whether they have data to go on or not. This could help them be more certain of what sort of people are watching. It won't help them make any better assumptions about what those people are interested in or are likely to buy.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
http://www.reel.com/movie.asp?MID=888
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Just looked at it again and realized they don't actually offer it "at this time." My mistake.
This site does make some suggestions on how to obtain the videos though.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So, what you're saying is that he paid them $3 for a piece of paper, and walked away feeling like he'd taken advantage of them.
Okay, I am not a statistician, but I do have a degree in Psychology. :) I don't think that this data would be all that useful. Don't the Nielsen ratings try to reflect every type of viewer? To have statistics that are even remotely valid for the population as a whole, you'd have to do random sampling, and make sure you got a decent cross-section of the types of viewers in the country.
:)
You'd need old people, young people, people with kids, rich people, poor people, white people, black people, and purple people eaters. Now, this does not lend itself well to the RePlay/TiVo/whatever model where the boxen cost $400. Why? Because the people who are going to buy these are most likely going to be white males in their 20's with disposable income who like gadgets. My parents and my grandparents aren't going to be shelling out $400 for a set-top box anytime soon, neither will most poor households, or households with children in them. Would you let your kids take control of your TiVo? You'd wind up with 20 hours of the TeleTubbies recorded.
The usage statistics generated from this data will be bizarre. The X-Files will have a 95% share, and about 1% of viewers will tune in for Touched by an Angel. This won't exactly be representative of the general viewing public.
I agree completely with the sentiment that the service/device should be free or discounted if they're going to use you for market research. I'd be willing to let them have tons of demo info on me if I got one for free, I can tolerate junk mail just fine, and telemarketers can't get through my phone blocks.
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
My brother noted that so far, the thing only records things like ER, political shows, business and entrepreneurship programs, and European bicycle racing. I guess I'll have to click the "thumbs up" button a few more times for some diversity in the mix of recorded programming.
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
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Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
It took a little experimentation to get "Save to VCR" working on my home theater system, but so far I have recorded that Code Rush documentary about Mozilla and the movie Apocalypse Now that was shown on IFC. This is really valuable because now I have the opportunity to watch these things with friends who do not get to see what is on DirecTV because they don't come to my house as often as I get to their place.
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Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
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Yeah! And I want to know which people on my block are homosexuals. And which are atheists. And which are communists. And which are muslims. And which have had an abortion. And which have AIDS. And which have ever tried pot. And which have ever rented a porno flick. And which have ...
I want to know every sercret you have.
//sarcasim off
As long as people persecute other people for differences in beliefs and lifestyles, I want privacy. As long as I am not breaking the law (assumption for this discussion, the laws are just) I should be left alone if I so choose.
THIS IS MY LIFE. I SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHOOSE WHAT I WANT TO SHARE AND WHO I WANT TO SHARE IT WITH.
Learn some history. SteveM's Law: If privacy info can be used against you it will be.
It wasn't safe to be a communist in the US in the 50's, even though it was legal. It wasn't safe to be a Japanese-American in the US during WWII, even though it was legal. In some places in the US today it is not safe to be gay (for example, you'll get thrown out of the armed services) even though it is legal. It isn't always safe to be an abortion doctor in the US, even though it is legal. I'm sure there are other examples in the US and elsewhere.
You closed with the open source arguement, I'll counter with the anonymous coward one.
Steve M
Both ReplayTV and TIVO use a phone connection to download TV listings.
I have a ReplayTV. It dials into the ReplayTV servers every night to update a weeks worth of TV listings. Without those TV listings, you cannot program the device to record TV shows.
Without the listings I could use the box to watch live TV, and still take advantage of pause, replay, rewind (how do you rewind a hard disk?)and such. I can also record shows by pressing the record button when the show starts.
But without being able to program the device for future recording it become much less useful to me. Thus not plugging in the phone line pretty much defeats the purpose of having a ReplayTV.
Steve M
Are Replay or Tivo "smart" enough to adjust to this so as to not miss "taping" any of the show?
ReplayTV is not. It goes by it's program listings. Thus it misses the beginings of shows that start early or the end of shows that start late. It also doesn't know when sporting events go long and offset the rest of the schedule. This creates to problems. If you're recording the game you don't record the overtime. If you're recording a program after the game you only get part of it.
It records based only on the start and end times in the program guide. And there is no mechanism for manually entering a start and end time for a recording.
Steve M
Well, several things. First of all, the goal of targetted advertising and television ratings is to sell you stuff. It isn't to challenge, educate, broaden horizons, or install a sense of community or civic duty. If someone is white supremacist survivalist, they are going to get a steady diet of gun commercials and right wing commentators, reinforcing their beliefs rather than educating them about alternative views. This subverts the medium of television even further than it already has been subverted.
But there are other concerns, too. In communist countries and Nazi Germany, people would get picked up and thrown in jail based on inferences about their ideology, derived from the flimsiest pieces of evidence: books they read, newspaper clippings they kept, remarks they made to friends.
Of course, something as blatant and crude as that doesn't seem like it's in the cards in the short term for the US (well, unless the religious right wins).
Things are likely to be much more subtle in the US. Data mining programs will make inferences from your viewing habits, possibly combined with your shopping habits, about lots of aspects of your life. Are you a home gardener or are you growing pot? How sexually active are you? What's your likelihood of developing heart disease? Are you a dangerous driver? Are you financially responsible?
This kind of data could be used to determine your insurance rates, credit worthiness, school admissions, job eligibility, propensity to engage in drug use or other criminal behavior, etc. To the insurance company, police, employer, or school, it's only statistical averages that matter: if you move to the top of their list, they'll make your life difficult. And for the individual, it will be difficult to prove that anything unusual has happened; in fact, this kind of analysis isn't illegal as long as it isn't used as a proxy for race.
There are massive personal data collections going on, and with good statistical techniques, anybody with the money to purchase the data will be able to get statistically excellent information on you. You can bet that this data won't just be used for targetted advertising: the economic incentives to use it for credit ratings, insurance, law enforcement/profiling, and employment are simply too strong. And you can also bet that if your are a bit unusual or excentric (and who on Slashdot isn't?), you'll pop out of those statistical models, either as a bad risk to be avoided, or as a likely suspect to be examined, even if your excentricities are completely harmless.
Allowing this kind of data collection to proceed is setting a dangerous precedent. I think the Europeans are right in essentially prohibiting any on-line data collection that isn't associated directly with a business transaction and requiring all data to be erased when the business transaction is over (airlines aren't even permitted to keep your meal preferences in their databases). Will the US have to learn the hard way to be careful when it comes to privacy?
Nobody's really going to be able to stop companies who make these boxes from tracking what shows you watch, especially when they're constantly dialing up some other computer to exchange information. I don't really mind if those TV executives know what show I'm watching either, as long as I'm anonymous. When they start attaching a name and other info to your statistics, then it's a bit of a privacy violation, but anonymous statistics are a good thing. It DOES help TV executives sculpt their programming better. There's only a very small fraction of the population who are Neilsen families. And, getting free service out of it would be good too. :)
:)
Of course, as soon as IPv6 is implemented, super-high-quality MPEG4 internet-TV stations will take over, and TV will be a thing of the past, so enjoy it while it lasts.
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Epitaph
And for our next trick - programming your TV to watch your favourite programs when you're not even there!
Ratings for geek programs through the closest TV equivalent of ballot-stuffing likely to be possible >;-)
Or for a scarier picture: You come back home from a two-month holiday to discover your Sony AIBO has been watching dogfood commercials the entire time, and your TiVo box now shows nothing but Lassie reruns...
So I think it's a reasonable deal. :) Lately I've been answering surveys about what I think about politics and some others have been about cars and new potential coffee brand.
I don't mind giving up what I think on these issues-- I like the idea that what I think effects some corporate decision making somewhere. The one t hing I don't like about the system is some the questions are skewed such that none of the answers represent what I think. For example, some of the political questions only let me choose between Democrats and Republicans-- no third parties were mentioned.
Yes, the program is easy to opt out off, and no you can't volunteer for it, they have to choose you to keep it random.
More information about the sponsoring company is available through http://www.intersurvey.com/
I'd love customized commercials. No anti-smoking commercials (I'm a non-smoker). No feminine hygiene product commercials. No Pepsi commercials. No commercials for Larry King Live.
/have/ to vote, it's no invasion at all - no different from an Open Source author /asking/ you to submit comments and feedback. The automatically taping of something is rather forward, but as long as it's smart enough to not fill all my hard drive space before I record RAW is WAR, who cares? It can be deleted, and the unit has already made the computations that I might also like WCW Nitro, even without recording it.
Honestly, if you're choosing to vote by hitting the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" button, what sort of invasion of privacy is it? Unless you
Adam
Sorry, but I have to step in here. Buffy is /not only/ for kids (or guys watching that cute slayer), it has a great sense of humour in it. You don't have to like it, but there is a bit more to the show than just the fighting scenes or crappy F/X. For me, it's the same reason I watch the X-Files these days: dialogue between the main characters is fun, the rest is the same stuff we've already seen many times. All very subjective, of course...
Nielsen ratings, like most public opinion research, uses random samples of the total population. As long as these samples are sufficiently large, one can reliably extrapolate -- within a known margin of error -- to get a picture of the total population's behavior.
So, can someone explain to me why all of us need our viewing habit tracked? If Nielsen wants to pay for a special verision of the Tivo/Replay software that will be compatible with their people meters, that's okay with me, because anyone who accepts a people meter is agreeing to monitoring of his behavior -- and presumaby is being compensated for it.
But as for the rest of us, this sort of monitoring is not only intrusive but also unnecessary.
I would like to add that this isn't too different from the access logs that a web server keeps. A webmaster knows exactly how many hits the server is taking, and from that can do a reasonable job of getting an actual count of people visiting the site. Mix into that voluntary demographic information, sex, age, etc., and the webmaster has a lot of info to go on.
Nielsen goes farther, possibly too far, by gathering statistics for all shows, similar to gathering the "logs" from multiple sites. They also force demographic information from their participants.
I would argue that with this Tivo, web sites, etc., that forced demographic info would not be required. Nielsen could grab it from voluntary sources and let statistics do the rest. Also, Nielsen would not need to track everyone across the channels or the net. Only those that are interested in participating with demographic info. The remainder of the population would be tallied as a simple "view".
The reason that the show is tied to the character is that the two-hour pilot was written in order to create an origin for the character of Max Headroom. Other than that, the show could have avoided Max, been retitled "Edison Carter, Twenty Minutes Into the Future", and marketed as a real cyberpunk show.
Instead, the first thing you know is that it's a show with Max Headroom in it, and this implies a lighthearted, silly sort of show. While there was certainly a lot of humor in the show, it was really cyberpunk: dark and brooding. Its target audience was probably seventeen year old males.
But, since it was a "Max Headroom" show, its actual audience was nine year old kids. They couldn't appreciated it, and many of us who could appreciate it were turned off by the title character.
--The basis of all love is respect
...to this day, I still cannot find a external FireWire-to-TV device...
You don't mean, like the Sony DVMC-DA1, DVMC-MS1, or DVMC-DA2? The original Sony DVMC-DA1 was a hit in the Mac marketplace when Firewire Macs and Final Cut Pro first came out. It's a pretty decent little solution for capturing analog video to DV for non-linear editing and putting it back on tape, though it's no true pro setup. Of course, if you're capturing off of TV, I doubt a $2000+ device is going to help the quality be any better than the DVMC-DA1.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It may be possible to determine, on your own, what TiVo really sends out. It runs Linux (2.1.42? that's what the README sez), and GNU tools were used in the development, so the source code for the modified kernel and the tools is available under the GPL. It *might* be possible to figure out exactly what's being sent using the tools...or, you can tap the phone line, record what goes through, do some black magic and see what's being sent.
On another subject...I think it's pretty cool that TiVo runs Linux, but doesn't trumpet their connection to the heavens like a lot of cash- and attention-starved operations are doing now. Also cool that they follow the GPL (I think).
As for ReplayTV, I can't dig up anything on what software it runs, but I'm willing to bet it's all proprietary and closed-source, based on their Technical Overview page. It pretty much says they "can't reveal everything."
C'est la vie, I suppose.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
The original story I replied to was about Replay, not TiVo. The post with the above misinformation got moderated up to a 5. Hopefully it gets moderated back down to equal this post so the correction can be seen by others scanning at a higher score level
Sorry for being such a tithead... :-(
Anyway, it's set "20 minutes into the future" in a world where TV ratings are updated instantly on charts in the TV exec board rooms and they make quick decisions on the fly about what to do, yank, and manipulate to try to get those instant ratings up. The show's lead character is Edison Carter, a investigative news reporter who juggles reporting the truth over pressures from his bosses at "Network XXIII" to skew the stories to get the ratings up. Reminds me of the TiVo story!
In this world, it's against the law to turn off your TV. Really great stuff. Once in a while, a network like A&E will run a marathon of the shows. I have most of them on tape from the 80s (and still fairly viewable).
The show rocked, but got cancelled because it was playing against Miami Vice and Dallas and in the end, ironically, the poor ratings killed it in its first season.
The video is stored in MPEG II format and it stores 20 hours, so how big a harddrive is that? (I'm thinking a 20.4 Gig hard drive would be more than adequate. But I've never tried to record a bunch of MPEG-II's before.) Now I'm guessing that the video capture device they are using is of higher quality than say, PC TV studio (which we use here at work). Any thoughts on the best video capture device to use? (Preferably one that works under Linux.)
I'm wondering what the serial port is for?
I'd rather try to build one of these myself than buy theirs, after all it is just a specialized PC.
Oh, and of course, my version will definitely have a CD reader/writer...
Well, just some random meanderings, I don't have any money right now or time to start a project -_-.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Does that mean I won't get any commercials? that would be a better service.. if I still have the same amount of commercials, it still sucks. Even if they all want me to buy a new computer, install window$ on it, and run office2000. If it gets rid of all commercials its better service. if it's just different, tailored shit instead of generic shit it's not a service for me, it's a service for the company.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Anyhoo--product placement, formerly just big business on the big screen, is rapidly encroaching on a small screen near you. Did you notice how all those snazzy flat screen monitors behind the nurses station on E.R. suddenly became Gateway brand snazzy flat screen monitors?
For the most part, Nielsen currently only looks at what whole shows you watch. If Nielsen starts observing your viewing habits that closely, there's nothing to prevent them from knowing what scenes you watch most closely, pause, rewind, FFF on through, that sort of thing. After analyzing that data, Buffy will eventually consist entirely of vampires dying to reveal Pepsi machines right behind them, Buffy holding a Pepsi can right next to her breasts, and Buffy giving that redhead a long, meaningful sip out of her Pepsi.
If we keep this up long enough, all we'll ever see on Buffy is the redhead licking Pepsi out of Buffy's navel.
I have to say I have mixed feelings about this. I'll save a bundle on porno, to be sure, but I can pretty much kiss quality television goodbye.
Creepy possibility #2: combine blue-screen technology, a huge demographics database, product placement, broadband and pointcasting all together to make sure that viewers from seven to thirteen see the redhead licking Kool-Aide out of the navel; from fourteen to twenty see Pepsi; from twenty-one to thirty it's Budweiser; from thirty to forty it's Guinness for men, or Amstel Light for women and all households which have purchased diet products in the last year; and from forty to fifty it's Scotch for households making over $100k/year, gin for $50k to $99k, and Bud for everything else. On pay-per view, you can watch the same show and instead of a flavored beverage, it's semen.
Maybe I won't save on pornography after all.
--
This is not my sandwich.
I'm not totally concerned at the possibility of my TV habits being tracked, as long as they have to ask my permission and it is anonymous. They could even have some limited demographic data (I'm sure they'd want it) and such information.
I also wouldn't mind a "Oh man this blows.", "This is good.", "I'm not actually watching this, it's just on until something better comes on.", or "I'd watch this more if it wasn't on at such an inconvenient time." options on my remote, or something similar. While if they track people without their permission I would object to gathering such information, I don't think such ideas are all bad.
Having never owned one, I don't know what kind of seals or tamper switches they might contain, but the tech I spoke to seemed pretty adamant that you should "reaaaaally not open the box". For all I know, once you open the box it narcs on you to the server or refuses to operate. Philips head screws are not a security device, and if they intent was to prevent users from upgrading or enhancing their existing system, who knows what the did.
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It all goes to attitude. It would have cost mere dollars to put the drive in some kind of plastic, removable cage. But they wanted to milk profits by tempting consumers into a very profitable upgrade every 6-12 months when drive storage has doubled. That's just plain anti-consumer. The FireWire was the best thing going for the ReplayTV and they took it out, not for legal reasons like they would suggest (since there is hardware everywhere capable of capturing shows just like ReplayTV does) but because they saw the profit potential and decided it was worth screwing the customer.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The first generation units had a FireWire port on the back...which would have made ReplayTV the perfect FireWire capture device (to this day, I still cannot find a external FireWire-to-TV device, even though there are a crapload of USB ones).
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
But guess what? Networks were concerned that someone would record show and then upload them onto the Internet. Guess what anyone under the sun can already do with existing capture cards? Duh. So one of the best features gets thrown out the window.
Not to mention that the main reason TiVo et. al. suck is that they are not user-upgradeable. Do I really need to pay some company $300 to put in a freakin IDE hard drive for me? Do I really need to pay $300 for a hard drive that would cost me maybe $150? This is blatently ripping off the consumer. With an external port OF ANY KIND it should be possible to store an infinite amount of video to CD-R/RW, DVD-RAM, hard disk, ZIP, whatever. But no...by removing the port, you force the consumer to follow your official pricing schedule. True, you can crack it open and Ghost the image to a bigger drive, but there goes the warantee.
ReplayTV almost had my business, but by choosing to be slave to the network interests, they have forever lost power users as their audience. I strongly encourage that anyone thinking about buying a replay TV go out and shop for a really high quality capture card instead.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The story is quite clear that Replay and Nielsen aren't negotiating to track system-wide usage statistics for Replay users but rather using Replay to track usage in homes that have specifically agreed to this with Nielsen as part of its People Meter rating system.
"Initial testing will be done only in People Meter homes that use a Replay machine. There are currently 23,000 to 25,000 homes in the top 48 markets with electronic People Meters that indicate when the TV is on, what channel it's on and who is watching.
Once the technology is developed to track the viewing habits of people with these time-shifting machines and testing is done, Nielsen will work with programmers and advertisers to determine how to report it in context."
As the story notes, 1 million people already willingly tell Nielsen exactly what they watch, and Nielsen simply wants to expand its offerings so it can tell advertisers what those homes are watching on their TiVo and Replay machines as well as Internet connections.
Don't like it? Simple, don't agree to be part of Nielsen's tracking system.
Sheesh
If this system is going to be so clever to track your viewing time habits, it will only mean that advertising will get added systematically until it decreases enough in popularity to become on par with other viewing times. This will contribure to the homogeneousness of the programming.
Don't you think?
Nielsen ratings are directly used to determine what programs stay on TV and what programs don't. Frankly, I think it would be great if the insipidly backwards, 1950s-style Nielsen Ratings system were updated to take into account today's technology.
:-)
As long as all the "tracking features" are disclosed up-front, this is a great advance. I'd buy one of these units just to get my "vote" for the shows I love a chance to be heard. As it is, so few "Nielsen Families" exist that I seriously question the integrity of the very ratings system which determines what programs I get to watch--low ratings, as you know, mean a show will get the axe. Currently, less than 25,000 households from only the top 48 markets get a "vote" in the ratings game.
This would be a first step towards perhaps changing that limited, closed, backwards system. I'm surprised that Nielsen hasn't gotten together with TV manufacturers to work out a deal--there would be even greater possibilities for revolutionizing the system if that were to happen.
This is just a small first step--only ReplayTV users, as the article says, in already-established Nielsen families, are going to have their usage habits tracked. But imagine the possibilities this could lead to, if the Nielsen people are encouraged:
Imagine a world in which your ReplayTV or TiVo, or even your television set, had a built-in modem and a small chipset designed to record your program choices and upload them once a week. You could choose whether to plug in your modem or not, so no privacy issues would be involved--consumers would boycott a "mandatory" feature like that, but welcome a voluntary one. Then, your viewing choices would have the chance to affect what shows stay on the air and which get nixed, whereas now your viewing habits have no value whatsoever since you're not a Nielsen family. I much prefer this model, than having a scant few families (relatively speaking) which supposedly represent some bonehead's idea of a statistical sampling, deciding which shows survive. I miss *My So-Called Life* and *Freaks and Geeks*, dammit!
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
It would be quite easy for this thing to record and transmit everything from which TV shows you watch to which commercials you fast forward through. And since you have an account with them, this info isn't anonymous; it's tied directly to you.
Also, even if the initial offering only transmits requested info, this is a computer. Updating it to transmit additional info is likely a small download in the middle of the night while you're snuggled trustingly in your bed.
Also, I would HATE customized commercials. There's an IBM (I think) commercial which shows a bunch of people sitting around talking about getting inappropriate advertisements. An apartment dweller gets ads for replacement windows; a cat owner gets dog food ads, etc. As they're talking, they're being watched by suits through one-way glass. The consumers turn towards the glass and yell something like "Hey! Isn't anybody listening?!" Then there's a blurb about software which can help you identify your custormer and maintain info on them. The song playing in the back ground is "Getting To Know You."
I though this was one of the most chilling things I'd ever seen. I don't want some advertisement agency watching what I do, what I own, what I buy. I don't want IBM or any other company to get to know me. I don't want some faceless entity, whether it's a person or a computer program, choosing which commercials I should watch. I don't want DoubleClick keeping track of which web pages I visit. Just stay the fsck out of my life!
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
"Now, at this point I should say something about privacy. TiVo guarantees that they neither monitor nor report your TV watching habits and preferences. All taste matching is reportedly done on your local machine, and no such data is sent back to TiVo. While I can't verify that claim, I will note that they are vigilant in making it clear that they respect your privacy."
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Does this work both ways? I think we should tell these people everything they want to know about us, after all this is the hackers way. It seems unfair that some companies should have to pay for this information, especially since there is no guarantee that its accurate, because it is obtained in rather a roundabout way.
In return, I want to know absolutely everything about everyone who works for or owns the company, source code for all software they use, detailed diagrams of all hardware, and details on how to build my own version.
Does this sound fair?
This is an honest question (don't just moderate me down simply because I disagree with the common slashdot opinion on privacy): What do you actually think will happen to you if they did monitor what you watch? Custom advertising tailored to what seems to be your interest? Is that really a bad thing? I don't know about your, but I personally could do without seeing all those feminine hygene advertisements :). Most of the arguments I seem to see on here are basically "well... it's the principle of the thing ...". I hardly *ever* see anyone mention the actually possible "horrible" consequences of someone invading your privacy in such a seemingly trivial way. Right now i am envisioning someone responding with something like "Well.. what happens when the government starts flagging people who watch a lot of violent shows?" ... but really, millions of people watch violent shows on tv - what are the chances the government is going to do this, let alone start singling people out (they don't have the resources to monitor millions of people's tv viewing habbits). Now.. ever if they DID start singling people out, what do you think they're going to do? Keep a close eye on you and if you commit some sort of crime arrest you? That would hardly seem like a problem to me (yeah.. then you say "but other people commit crimes too and have a less chance of getting caught cause they're not monitored" -- but that's just crazy-talk ... doesn't mean it's unfair that you got caught, it means our policing system needs to be improved so those other people are caught too). Anyhoo.. just some of my ranting.. maybe someone can change my mind or something.
i was lucky (?) enough to catch an infommercial for one of the brands of these (tivo i believe) some late night and it scared the life out of me when they mentioned the "feature" where the unit tracks what shows you like (through thumbs up and down buttons on your remote) and then tapes other shows it "thinks" you might be interested in while you are away. . .that just takes it too many steps down the road to 1984 if you ask me.
User: Hmmm lets watch something different tonight...... Ahh channel 'whatever' is doing a report about the microsoft case.
Sound of user zapping with remote
ReplayTV9000: I'm sorry user I can't do that.
Sound of user trying it again
ReplayTV9000: I'm sorry user I can't do that. You have tried to watch anti-microsoft propaganda twice, this has been reported to Emporer Gates. Prepare to be terminated.
Grtz, Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
And for those thinking of commenting about how Replay is intending to use this information to figure out what other shows you might be interested in, this is simply a local extension to the technology. I mean if the system's already built to keep track of some of the things you like to watch, even if it doesn't relay this information, it's only natural to think about using it for your own entertainment.
If you're really worried about the evil set-top boxes sending details about the porn you watch, why don't you just keep from plugging it into the phone line?
Again, this is not evil Big Brother tracking technology here. It's pretty clear that it's being done on a volunteer basis.
Do you people even know who Nielson is?
They are a company that takes volunteers and asks them to report on their TV watching habits. Some times this takes the form of transient "diaries", other times it's in the form of a permanent "box". This information is used to determine what a complete cross-section of America is watching at any given time.
The only thing they're doing in this case is working with Replay to figure out a way to adapt this system for their time-delayed product, where real-time ratings don't quite mean as much. At the moment, they're just ignoring the Replay market, but as this has the potential to affect the way we watch TV, and as shows we might ordinarily miss are now within our viewing abilities, it affects the show's ratings as well.
This is a typical YRO article. Someone shouts "tracking habits!" and Slashdot authors pick it up, frothing at the mouth.
Come on, people, do you really think a VCR-like device is going to SELL when it dials up every night and reports your every TV watching habit? This is utter BULLSHIT, and I'm quite sick of it. There is certainly a privacy angle to this, but I would THINK that anybody volunteering to report on the shows they watch would be aware of these issues in the first place.
PLEASE do a bit of research on your own, and DO NOT take the word of these YRO "authors" as gospel. They are quite frequently WRONG in their assessment of the situation, in many cases negligently so.