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Microsoft Watching What You Watch
Arkham writes "According to this Wired article, Microsoft
has contracted with a company called Predictive Networks to track the viewing habits of Microsoft TV devices. The Predictive software creates a "Digital Silhouette" that is described as being able "to tell them that Joe watches a lot of baseball, likes Situation Comedies, and
responds favorably to commercials that use humor."." I've always said
that I'm cool with my Tivo tracking what I watch, provided it never tells
anyone my name and address to anyone.
If it meant I watched more
targetted advertisements, I'd fast forward less.
I leave my TV on all day while Im at work. Then when I go to sleep change the channel. PBS ratings are about to skyrocket.
Why do I get the feeling that MS is building it's own Magic Lantern/Carnivore type thing. This is the app that I'm really scared of.
MSN tracks our shopping, email, surfing, and chatting. Now they are going to track our TV watching habits. I don't know whether to throw the Ultimate TV out the window or just give up and just start send Redmond my stool samples.
The Predictive software creates a "Digital Silhouette" that is described as being able "to tell them that Joe watches a lot of baseball, likes Situation Comedies, and responds favorably to commercials that use humor."
So how does it intend to find out that Joe responds to commercials? Is the TV somehow connected to his bank account, or are they going to go for the old fashioned means of microphones?
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
If I see a big face wearing glasses show up on my TV I'm chucking a hammer through it!
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
...Web sites across the Internet are tracking which ad banners you see and click on by using a sophisticated "cookie" file.
This article would be "news" if we weren't already familiar with the technology, I think.
I understand that companies are trying to gain as much data as possible on the population. But at what point does this become intrusive?? You know what I watch on TV, You know where I shop, You know what Prescriptions I take, You know what Web Sites I go to. Is there such a thing as privacy anymore???
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. RUSH
There are some good uses of this sort of technology as well, beyond targetted adverts. Being able to draw on what other people like to watch to suggest things to see, for example. If I like programs A and B, and the vast majority of people who also like them like program C as well, the system should be recommending that I try it. A step forward from the single-user service that TiVo offers.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Now you too can have Ad Cookies for your TV. Targeted marketing! Bill boards which flash special offers, tailored for your individual needs! Oh dear. I hate ad banners. I intensely dislike ad banners which collate information. TV profiling just seems... too sick. Of course, it's on a par with 'store cards' which they can use to track what you buy and when, but I am not a number. I am a free man!. Or something :)
I would much rather have some Tivo database somewhere with my name in it than to repeatedly write hideos prose on a web site that gets millions of hits per month. Or maybe that's just me...
;-) We still love you, 'taco
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
People that actually buy Microsoft TV devices? Middle aged men, that like expensive toys. Looks like ratings for porn, sports, and the Man show are going to sky rocket...
And, hopefully, it means more high quality shows that the Nielsens discount, and end up as 'cult' shows.
I'm sure more people watched MST3K than the Nielsens calculated...
I leave my cable box on 24 /7, usally on a info channel :) does that mean the cable company would make more "how to use this service" channels if they were tracking me?
:)
I dont think so, MS will probably only log about what is on your tv for about 30 min after the channel has changed
--
The computer told me to press any key to continue,I pressed the one looking like this (|) !!OH SH*T!!
I think it's a given that any set-top box that you buy today (TiVo, ReplayTV, anything by Microsoft) is likely going to track viewing habits and use that data for market research. I'm not 100% against the concept--if it means that there will be more shows that I actually like, I think it's a good thing. What we have to worry about is when the media line is crossed, where the data is used to target you for direct mailings, telemarketers, spam even.
Imagine you are watching TV, and you watch a lot of National Geographic. Suddenly, you find yourself getting magazine subscription requests in the mail, telephone calls from NG about becoming a member, and e-mail in your Inbox about the Web site, all just from watching TV. This is something we need to remain vigilant about, that the companies don't use the data they collect in an all-out attempt to sell us their wares (no pun intended).
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
The Predictive software creates a "Digital Silhouette" that is described as being able "to tell them that Joe watches a lot of baseball, likes Situation Comedies, and responds favorably to commercials that use humor/
How in the hell does it know how he responds to the humorous commercials? Hopefully they just know that he doesn't change the channel away from them, and that they don't actually know his response somehow....
~ now you know
pronoblem
I think privacy went out the window a long time ago with marketing, but we have to consider that our privacy has two parts: our unique life, and our generalized interaction with this world. If you look at my mail, I bet you could guess that I work on computers. That's fine as far as I'm concerned, and I think privacy on a large scale is still very much in tact. Microsoft doesn't care that I went to Meijer this morning for coffee, and that it was exactly 3.5 miles from my house, and that I walked about 20 steps to get into my place. That's my privacy!!! Not the fact that I work in computers. Yes I would like less junk mail... no I do not want my government records available for download, but as far as everything else, I accept that this is what drives the money around.
On the Predictive Networks website privacy page they say it is their policy that
"No individual's channel viewing or click-stream data is saved, shared or sold"
Now, I'm wondering, do they literally just group all television shows into "Situation Comedy", "Baseball", etc.? This would mean that the classifications could be misleading. What if a person only watches shows that star a certain actor? Or shows that feature women/men in revealing outfits? This privacy policy wioll work for ads, but their model of analyzing particular shows could lead to a lot of faulty statistcal analysis.
What scares me is that once they find out that they can't accurately model viewer behavior with their current privacy policy, they might dump it in favor of a less restrictive one.
-Darius
Some potential users are concerned over the prospect of being observed by their household appliances, and said they would not knowingly purchase a product that tracked their entertainment preferences.
Isn't that exactly as in 1984? The screen that was watching you... maybe... or maybe not. And the feds won't use it ever, we swear.
All right, maybe I'm paranoid now... but don't they say "don't beleive it until it's officially denied"?
Wired blew this story. Microosft did not announce anything. Predictive were the guys who issued the release and basically all they said is "we're building our stuff to work on the MS TV platform". That's it. No big brother built in to ultimateTV.
Is it just me, or are more people getting a very strong "1984" vibe here? I already saw myself at my Linux box, just hacking away merrily when the voice of Big Brother Bill came out of the tv... and then I woke up screaming...
PageTurner Reader: open-source e-reader for Android with cloudsync. http://pageturner-reader.org
.. but you linux kids here at slashdot (yes I realize there are a handful like me that LIKE Microsoft) are all up in arms that Microsoft is doing it?
You all know that if it were 50x better than the competition you still wouldn't buy it because it said Microsoft on it and you have this irrational hatred for them... so why are you worried if they track the fast forward / rewind / channel change habits of people?
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
"I've always said that I'm cool with my Tivo tracking what I watch, provided it never tells anyone my name and address to anyone. If it meant I watched more targetted advertisements, I'd fast forward less."
The whole idea behind cookies and tracking what I watch or someone watches to personalize advertizing frankly doesn't work. Why?, because that information is used to develop stereotypes for the advertising industry to appeal to. Since its impossible, even with cookies and other collected internet information, to properly read our minds, Advertisers instead go with broad generalized stereotypes to appeal to. Think I'm kidding? Notice how they run certain ads only on certain channels during specific shows designed to appeal to a chief "demographic". The advertising world has no problem designing ads that appeal to the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant on one hand, and Black Southern Baptist on the other, using all the stereotypes (both positive and negative) that go with those stereotypes.
So if Microsoft can know what I watch and target it, they'll just instead shove more lacklaster products my way that I'll have to fast forward through. Frankly, I'd rather have a random sampling of ads for me to choose, with no one's input but mine, to fast forward through or not.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
Imagine setting up a small standalone circuit with a timer, an infrared LED, and the necessary circuitry to emulate one small part of a cable box's remote: The channel up button. Every few seconds, perhaps with a bit of randomness introduced, change the channel up one. Leave this running when you're not actually watching the one-eyed-idiot.
;-)
Meanwhile, back at Microsoft:
"This guy has the worst case of channel surfing we've ever seen!"
Unable to target the viewer with anything but blipverts, landmail advertisements start arriving for Ritalin at wholesale prices.
Where they know what you watch, what you listen to, who you are and where and what you surf, where you live, where you work, what games you play, your credit card number, and some day who you voted for.
And much much more.
With all their products spread across from one end of the spectrum to the other, wouldn't be that difficult for them to stich all the user info together and actually end up knowing more about you than your mother does.
I wouldn't like my viewing habits being documented even if it was Tux the Almighty doing it...
PageTurner Reader: open-source e-reader for Android with cloudsync. http://pageturner-reader.org
> So how does it intend to find out that Joe responds to commercials?
By the surprisingly easy method of channel monitoring. It's been shown time and again that if a commercial is uninteresting, people will surf around to other channels, then come back when they think the show is back on. This behavior is also what drives the short-long method, where the first commercial break in a show is short (two or three ads) then the next is longer, and the network can charge more for the ones in the middle of the long set, since they have a higher "hit position" than the ones in the beginning. So, the device simply monitors which commercials keep Joe from changing the channel, and then looks for trends in those commercials to see what themes keep his hands off the remote.
And you thought this was simple? Networks spend millions learning stuff like this.
Virg
The more I watch the news, especially since September 11, the more I realize there is very little new information dispersed to the masses. Instead I see people waving signs, but no mention is given to their history or how those signs were written in English. News, more and more I think, just tells us mostly what we want to hear or think we would hear.
It seems to me that one of the primary purposes of advertising is to sell you things you didn't know you needed. So if advertising is so targeted that the commercials and products only reflect ones already forged tastes, then how does that help to sell more widgets? Like the news, this sounds like a way to sell us what we already know about or what we already want, and doesn't seem to lend itself to increasing sales or opening new markets.
Hey, if this means I'll have to sit through fewer ads for feminine hygiene products, then I really don't see a problem.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
consider, say I watch a lot of p0rn when my wife and/or girlfriend is away or goes to bed early, and my wife suddenly wonders why all the targetted TV ads are for sex chatlines and hot hard action......
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Tin foil helmet firmly on...
Police forces and intelligence agencies currently use psychological profiling when trying to hunt down serial killers, terrorists, etc.
Imagine a profile suggested the criminal in question would probably respond "favorably to commercials that use humor". Do you think that Microsoft has done a deal with the FBI to share the data they get from this?
Are we going to have to start to worry about our profiles if we start watching too many violent films or are obsessive fans of the X-Files?
I can't get too worked up about this... as long as the consumer knows when he buys a Microsoft TV product that it 'comes with' this kind of monitoring. That, to me, is the key -- full and open disclosure, and a consumer educated enough to know what that means.
Really, if you have a Yahoo 'home page' configured, you're already providing information about your preferences -- voluntarily -- albeit on a lesser scale then what MS TV will do.
If you use one of those 'shopper discount' grocery store cards, you're also providing this kind of information, in even greater detail. If you purchased a pregnancy test or jock-itch ointment last week, it's in a database somewhere if you use one of those cards, and the fact that they don't individually target you NOW for marketing based on this information doesn't mean they won't in the future.
From the above article: "...61 percent of retailers surveyed either have or plan to have frequent-shopper programs. Already, more than a quarter of all supermarket sales are tracked with the cards."
That shopper discount card sounds much like what MS TV plans:
"Scott Oddo, director of research at Predictive Networks, said the collected information does not connect viewers' interests to their names or other personally identifiable information."
It's not like some kind of database where the Evil Goons at Microsoft can look up exactly what you were doing minute-by-minute every day of your life now is it?
Systems like this already exist in other areas - think of the loyalty cards that many shops now run for instance. In fact, loyalty cards store more detailed information than this system does.
I for one don't oppose the idea of having a TV that didn't show be some of the quite incredible amounts of crap that I would never want to watch. I don't much like adverts either, but if I have to watch them I'd rather see relevant ones than more pointless rubbish about stuff that I can't even use.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Somewhere in it (or one of the previous bills) you have received "terms of service and privacy notice". That clearly says your cable company is collecting the data and shares it with affiliates "to provide better service" ("this call can be monitored for quality assurance"). In other words, they do know how much time you spent watching Enterprise and fact that you flipped channel during commercials. Why nobody screams about that? And lining up all "affiliates" of cable company will lead to a whole lot of companies that they have business relationship with.
:)
p.s. as MSNBC is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC, they do get report from your cable company on how much time you've spent watching them (so cable company would be able to calculate costs/pay adequately). Question is how detailed that report is now and how detailed it will be but nothing prevents "single user" report from cable company. Read the fine print
Hyperom.com
I'd rather watch good not-my-genre commericals than dumb, boring, stupid commercials that fit my genre.
Can it depect commerical suckage?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The more companies know about us, the more they can charge for their products. Example: a national grocery store implements a "membership card" system and tracks what I buy. Pretty soon is knows exactly how much it can raise the price of a loaf of french bread before people will stop buying it. Next thing you know, my 79 cent loaf costs $1.39 and I'm supposed to feel lucky when they sometimes offer a special membership price of $1.10. Uh huh.
Oh, and that situation isn't so hypothetical in my neighborhood.
How many other companies do you think the cable companies etc. sell this statistical information to?
I mean, come on, this is not new. You get a ton of questionairres through the post all the time, some people fill them in, some don't. But those who do wouldn't turn around and complain that company X is using their data, which they submitted.
You'll probably find that somewhere in your contract for your cable/satellite TV, it states that the company may use information based on your viewing to form statistics, or for supply to an external statistics company.
I'm sorry, but I don't see Microsoft obtaining this information (in a perfectly legal way) being anything other than 'standardly' competitive, along with several other companies. Do you not think even people like TiVO use this kind of information? The whole media industry relies on statistics such as this. Stop being paranoid.
Talking about banners etc., from other threads. Has anyone heard of CMS perhaps?
Many large sites are keen to track their visitors. They are keen to find trends and to personalize content based on what the user likes. If the user clicks on a banner about 'cars', then maybe that user would like the 'portal' site more if there was more car content on it. I don't see that as snooping. I see that as feature enriching the users experience, which in turn brings in more cash, which in turn improves the experience and the site. What is so wrong in that?
Everyone is getting paranoid.
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
Inside the flat a fruity voice was reading out a list of figures which had something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it wa s called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.
[...]
Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
Bush Lies Watch
Marketers are getting really good at advertising to speific characteritics of people. Now they will have our tv watching habits as well. What next? Looking at our DNA to figure out what we can be targetted for. I think a good law suit would be blow all your money/credit on all the *crap* they try to sell to you then turn around and sue them becuase you are a victim to their all powerful advertising campaign. You couldn't resist they pushed your buttons, your instincts.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
Anyone who wants to actually watch adverts is a first class idiot. Don't you see what marketing has done to you? Your so acclimatised to it, you selectively want seem to want it.
Why is targetted advertising still non-existant? I was reading my "my yahoo" homepage earlier today, and it was full of advertising for shopping coupons and holidays that are available only to people in the US. I live in Switzerland! Yahoo knows this!
If yahoo can't even target advertising when I say they want ads for a specific region, what's the chance of Microsoft being able to succesfully guess what I'm interested in? Zero.
Actually, I blame the advertisers. Afterall, they're the ones that are wasting money trying to sell me products and then telling me they can't. Advertisers still haven't caught on the advantages of the internet, so new technology isn't going to make anything better.
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
First of all, it is NOT OK with me, TiVo doing it, or anyone else.
Second of all, MS stuff is NOT 50X better, by any standard. It is not better at all.
Third, there is nothing irrational about an extreme dislike for Microsoft. You can remain blind to the subject as much as you want; but this is about far more than just an inferior product. And most frightening of all is that they quite sincerely don't see anything wrong with their behavior. So it's your responsibility
and mine to object in any way you can. Hey, I have to use MS stuff too from time to time; but I try really hard to keep it to a minimum. It's the least any of us can do.
Oops
You may want to run such stuff on your XP in order to clean things up a bit...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Where are the days when you could just hook the cable to your TV and VCR without problems? Without the special convertor boxes that limit you and force you to pay "per device". I want to be able to tape one show and watch another, but now according to the way the equipment functions I can't do that without paying for two cable boxes, oh and BTW they also montior what I'm watching (which I don't want either) though they call it a "reward" program which I can't cancel out of. Gotta love the new and improved cable systems.
Have you ever been scolded for labeling a person? Has anyone ever told you not to make assumptions about others?
There is absolutely no reason to "profile" peoples habits. In fact, it's not ethical.
Not only that, it's a useless endeavor. I always have a laugh at the Marketing guys expense. He lies and fantasizes to the bosses about this and that, trying to convince the world that he understands some magic formula that will pull in the eyes or the bums on seats. What rubbish!
And then, a single mother on welfare becomes the richest author in history. J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter anyone?
Now, it's considered no problem to track the electronic habits of the digital population. Why? Because young, naive, over paid geeks seem have gotten all their ethics from Transformers cartoons.
"According to this Wired article, Microsoft has contracted with a company called Predictive Assworks to track the habits of Microsoft Toilet devices. The Predictive software creates a "Digital Ass Print" that is described as being able "to tell them that Joe eats a lot of corn, dislikes hot chile sauce, and responds favorably to quilted triple ply tissue."
Is there nothing that Microsoft hasn't got their hand in?
M$ Maketeer#1 Joe watches a lot of baseball, likes Situation Comedies, and responds favorably to commercials that use humor.
M$ Maketeer#2 He sounds like our kind of brain-dead moron.
M$ Maketeer#1 Send him a brochure.
This isn't anything new, I remember Cable Regina (a cable provider that was always ahead of the game) more or less had live TV ratings and this was five or six years ago- but due to CRTC regs they couldn't just go around releasing them. Or something like that- my memory's a bit fuzzy.
Heh another interesting thing about Cable Regina- it was like a collective or something- profits all went back into updating services and even producing some local shows (all hail James & Kevin!)
But tracking what you watch is easy for cable companies! Hate to say it- but this is really only a story because it's Microsoft correct?
As a matter of fact, Amazon.com will do this now. On a personalized level, it will build a page of recommendations for you based on past purchases and also your own stated preferences -- and it at least used to provide you a link to 'the page that you built', which was basically a list of the last several things you have browsed. Also, although this isn't personalized for you per se, when you look at an ad for one book or product, there's a list entitled (for books) "Customers who bought this book also bought...".
Personalization and even tracking are good, as long as you know about it when you're buying the product or using the service, and (I think this next point is where we are starting to fall down, societally) as long as the consumer is educated enough to know what he's giving up in exchange for the higher level of service, and the risks involved.
Don't people normally get paid to be in studies for market research? Get paid to watch commercials and give feedback? With this feature of tracking your viewing habits and your responses to certain commercials by watching them or changing the channel, isn't that like being part of a focus group? Shouldn't we be getting paid to watch television?
But being paid to watch television would be a huge boost to the waist sizes of viewers... I guess that's a Bad Thing.
I'd suspect they'd use a 'timeout' of a couple of hours, which would be the simplest solution (I think) to filter out the sleeping watchers from the interested watchers. Web apps do it all the time.
But... why else would they use this data? Whether it is intended to be used for personal or group marketing, it most certainly is intended to be used in an attempt to sell us all more wares.
Personally, I'm ok with that, as long as it doesn't get used for more nefarious purposes than ad-targeting and tv-show-ratings.
I think that the abilty to track what you're watching has many possible positive uses. Targeted advertising is one, the ability to suggest programming based on the tastes of similar users is another, a more precise idea of what people like than the Nielsons is something else. All these things are good.
I have always been willing to let my information be collected to statistical analysis, when it is not personally identifiable. If all that is recorded is, "People who like show X are interested in products of type Y and also like shows of type X'," I don't see much of a problem. If, however, what is eventually recorded by the company is my specific viewing habits, that is a bit entrusive. It is true that this happens elsewhere, with shopping cards and cookies on the internet, I guess it depends on what things you think people can collect by those methods and how much you care. But I guess the thing is that any day I can just start paying in cash, or tell Opera not to accept any cookies. If you can likewise turn off these features in MS's set top box any time you want, fine, but I doubt you will be able to.
The bottom line is that in the end, for all of the purposes I stated at the top, you don't really need personalized information to do a decent job. You'd do the best job with personalized information, but you could do ok just recording correlations of shows with specific interests or preferences. The thing is that to do this, often you are sending them personally identifiable information, which is then processed and none of the personal part is kept. It then comes down to, do you trust the company not to keep that personal info? There are some companies I would trust with that...Microsoft is probably not one of them. Some of the things like targeted ads, could be done to some degree in-box. Like it sends the box 4 perspective adds to show and then based on your viewing habbits, it picks the one you're most likely to like. The less info is uploaded the better. Still, I think I'd go with a company I trust more.
...Besides, how long will it be until they hook these things up with some sort of internet connectivity and then there's a worm that will go around sending messages to your Granma showing her the sleezy stuff you like to watch?
"TV sucks!"
"I know you're angry right now, so I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
You're traveling through another dimension - a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead. Your next stop... The Twilight Zone.
But first...
Friends, have you been down in the dumps lately? Life got you going... slow? Well, we've got just the thing to get you going: The Xbox! (Not for use with the "Linux" system, which is the devil.)
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
If it meant I watched more targetted advertisements, I'd fast forward less.
:-)
Not sure about that for everyone. Usually the commercials that everyone remembers are the funny ones. ( Remember: "WAAAAZZZZUUUPPPPP!" ) Currently, i see about one good ad per month. Meaning if you want to target me, then you will have to show the same ad over and over again, which means FAST FOWARD!
It's akin to letting the new kid in school return the footballs to the equipment shed, as opposed to the troublemaker who's stolen everything he could get his hands on. We've been burnt before by these guys. If they can get away with it, they will.
Time to widen the page
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
M$ Maketeer#1 : Joe responds favorably to funny commercials, epecially those about hot grits.
M$ Maketeer#2 : How do you know that?
M$ Maketeer#1: Because he gave commercial #12513GHH001 a + 2, Funny
[pink beam of light]
From my experience with marketroids and web server logs, I'm not sure they actually *want* to know people's likes and dislikes. They actually get quite shocked with hard evidence contrary to their own beliefs, immediately claiming that the "server must be broken" or "we're being hacked". Some even go as far as removing links to sections of the site that they think are overly popular, to "direct traffic back to the more important part of the site". With this system:
"Sir, the latest tracker results say that people are 92% more likely to change channels when the Microsoft flying-through-the-air XP ads are on!"
"WHAT?! That's impossible... hmmm, can we pay for the other channels to be blank while our ads are on?"
I'm trying to figure out how this would work on me. Being a typical American male, I was born with my right thumb on the channel-up button of a remote. I watch every channel on TV for no more than five seconds at a time. It drives my wife crazy and she'll eventually leave the room and go watch the bedroom TV instead.
So how is this logging going to be useful to anybody when the database on my set-top has 3500 entries in it between 6:00 and 9:00 PM?
I hear an awful lot in terms of comparing this device to shopper loyalty cards, but there are (at least) two very major differences. First, the store actually pays me to use the card. If I use it, my stuff costs less. This device isn't likely to reduce the number of commercials I have to watch in return for the information it gets. Second, if I decide I'm buying something I don't want in the database, I can pocket the card and they're none the wiser. Is there some method by which I can temporarily turn off the tracking on this device? Not likely. So, this comparison is essentially invalid.
Virg
"to tell them that Joe watches a lot of baseball, likes Situation Comedies, and responds favorably to commercials that use humor."
So does how do they see that i respond favorably to a commercial.. if its live i can't fast forward.. DO they Have a Microphone that monitors laughter and a video camera that monitors a scowl... Oh MY!!! maybe they do.. EEEK!! i'm scared.. better be wary of your webcam and if they start adding voice recognition into the stuff..
Who makes you Sig?
The new top show this week is BSOD. Microsoft officals are puzzled by this since BSOD is not anywhere on their schedule.
> If it meant I watched more targetted
> advertisements, I'd fast forward less.
Just like you buy more CD's while using P2P music sharing, right?
Ah, Max Headroom. Man, I miss that show.
Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, will be quoted out of context on
It's not so much that it's been done before, it's being done by one that is troubling. Then you get data mining where all those innocent little bits of information about you are collected, analyzed, and determinations made about you.
My guess is, the only ones left defending Microsoft at that point will be the Microsoft plants. I wonder how close we are to that being the case now...
However, there's a reason why I actually like Tivo's data collection. I think Taco's dreaming a bit as far as actual targeted ads go (at least for now), but there's a more important benefit: Aggregate viewing statistics are more or less what're commonly referred to as "ratings". Ratings determine whether shows live or die. They determine how much many a network gets from a show's advertisers. This, in turn, determines how much money goes into a show's budget. It should be obvious why having my viewing habits correlate with TV studio's spending is A Good Thing.
To provide a slightly more concrete example, however, I give you "Family Guy". It's a funny show, it has a decent geek following, and it runs in a time-slot that's otherwise dominated by stupid reality TV. The network it's on, Fox, keeps playing the stupid game of repeatedly cancelling the show and then bringing it back. Apparently, they decided that last week's ratings were going to decide whether or not they cancel the show yet again. I recorded the show on my Tivo and watched it. Assuming that Fox subscribes to Tivo's viewer information, that's one more vote in the "Keep it on the air, dammit" column. Even better, given that viewer statistics are collected from a relatively small portion of the viewing public, it's a disproportionately large vote.
Hi!
You may well have seen a grocery store chain experiment with prices--that's a practice that's been going on for decades. (Grocery stores routinely change different prices in different neighborhoods--a few cents more in rich neighborhoods (where consumers will pay more for convenience) and a few cents less in poor neighborhoods (where consumers may be more price-sensitive). The "frequent shopper" card systems won't really impact that--grocery stores can map price/demand (elasticity) curves already.
What the frequent shopper programs do is help the stores manage what products get displayed, how they get displayed, and how they are priced. They do this by identifying the "core customers"--both of the chain, and of that particular store.
Most consumers purchase most of their groceries at one particular store. They might shop at a different store (it's adjacent to your child's school, so you can stop in on your way to work) occasionally, but that big hundred-bucks-a-week trip usually happens the same place. By offering lower prices on selected items, the stores entice the frequent shopper to sign up for the card, and permit his shopping habits to be tracked. While this offers the theoretical possibility of monitoring the customer (we get our prescription drugs at the grocery store--if I start getting scrips filled for AZT, does that mean I have AIDS?), it offers the immediate opportunity of selling coupons to advertisers. (To wit: I buy dog food--even when I am not buying dog food in that particular trip, I almost always get a dog food coupon at the register.)
The real advantage of a frequent shopping card, though, is identifying the buying habits--in the aggregate--of the store's core buyers. It helps enormously in making "plan-o-gram" decisions: how much of what to stock where. Example: last week the deli ran out of salmon four days running. Should we increase our daily order of salmon? Well--if our data shows that most of that salmon was bought by frequent shoppers, the answer is obviously yes--these are customers who will likely be back for more seafood. On the other hand, if very few of our frequent shoppers bought that salmon, it might be wise to wait--we may have had a statistical cluster of salmon-swallowing tourists in the neighborhood. In a similar way, we can identify whether our core customers buy more of our store brands or the name brands for particular products. We may find differences between this behavior in different stores: in stores where our brands do better, we give those brands more space; where our core customers prefer the name brands, we give the name brands more shelf space. In any case, we tailor the shelf space in each store to focus on the product mix favored by the frequent shoppers in that store--that may mean more salmon in some stores, and more produce in others. (Real live example: there is a chain grocery store in Morrisville, Vermont--a tiny town thirty miles from the Canadian border--that has five different varieties of fresh mushrooms in the produce section on any given day. Why? Because their core customers like mushrooms. [Real Vermonters might suggest that this store caters to quiche-eating flatlanders, and offer this as proof, but I digress....)
In the example that you cite:
The store might test different prices to determine your resistance to a price increase (this is called "elasticity" by economists--elasticity is to Econ majors as pointers are to CS majors: if you don't get the concept, you tend to go find another major). If you're going to buy French bread, and you're willing to pay $1.39, that's the price. The frequent shopper cards may help in letting the store measure price resistance among the core shoppers (that is, if 80% of the store's french bread is sold to frequent shopper cardholders, and they demonstrate a near-horizontal elasticity curve [change the price, they don't care] then the store can safely hike the price of french bread). But stores have measured elasticity like this, as I wrote above, for decades--all the frequent shopper cards do is let them measure price resistance more accurately.
John Murdoch
Things like this could make the Neilson ratings a thing of the past!
Shows could be canceled or renewed based on who actually watched them. Instead of a sampling which may or may not reflect the actualy popularity of a show (I know it has a good confidence interval and all, but it's still just a sampling), this kind of thing would tell the networks what people really watch!
Knowing something like this was the case, I'd be more likely to watch reruns! I often skip reruns to catch up on other things, but if I knew I could help make sure my favorite show stayed on the air by watching reruns, I'd be much more likely to watch them.
Frankly, as long as they are tracking what I personally am watching, i.e. I'm just a statistic, I don't have any problem with it.
--Ty
In related news, Starbucks's coffee card, one likely gift to be in your stocking, comes with an interesting caveat... if you want any value-add to your card, you have to tie it to a Microsoft .NET Passport account.
All your coffee are belong to us.
Slashdot: Everything in Moderation, including Moderation itself.
I'm a avid Microsoft user. I use Microsoft at work and at home, although I do have an installation of Red Hat.
Microsoft has revolutionized the computer industry, and for that I thank you. They have the software and os industry by the neck, without Microsoft products we would seize to function. With the new introduction of XP, new anti-copying functions, MSN and the ever popular Passport they gather information about us that we wouldn't even know we had. But at what point do you say hold on Big Brother? My privacy is being challenged everday when I hit the internet. Why then does it have to be bastardized when i'm surfing the Tube?
Is microsoft installing cameras in the XBox to figure what genre of people are playing and what games are being played the longest? Give me a break, it's riduculus?
--some who loves to hate Microsoft
You're right that simple eyeballing will tell a good stocker or store manager which products and brands are selling, and which aren't.
Better yet, point-of-sale software in grocery stores already is generally capable of determining which brands are selling faster at which stores in an automated fashion -- per-customer sales are mostly irrelevant for this purpose. (Unless, let's say, around July 4 you could tell from your card usage that relatively few customers purchase relatively large numbers of cases of beer, customers who generally don't purchase any beer at all -- in which case you could adjust your sales and quantity discount schemes. Of course, you could get this from sales receipts that are not associated with named customers, only with anonymous sales transactions.)
Believe me, stores know the sales patterns for their stores, even without customer cards -- which underscores the fact that the cards are used mostly for marketing purposes.
So if the police interviewed your coworkers, they wouldn't figure that out? I would think the police can make a better profile of you by interviewing people close to you than using Microsoft's database.
And I doubt the police will have a case where the suspect "responds favorably to commercials that use humor", and get a list of those who do for interviews. Do you get pulled over becuase you drive a Honda and a Honda was recently used in a bank robbery? The police use department of motor vehicle records all the time!
I see this issue as related more to marketing. I don't want 50 people calling/mailing/e-mailing offers for a computer because I happened to watch three commercials for computers. If I really want a computer, I'll research what I want and compare. But then not a single commercial prompted me to buy anything (but did provide an alternative choice during shopping). So maybe I'm not the right kind of consumer.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
This is all we need it to have a bunch of people who think they know it all use stupid softweare to look at what we watch on tv! Now there will be all kinds of stupid stuuf on tv. Because you know they will only put on and use any thing that in any way helps them selfs!!!
Riiiiight.
Perhaps if they learned that telephone calls are anti-effective on me (I was going to subscribe to NYT until they called me soliciting for subscriptions), and e-mail is ineffictive unless I request it (although not so negative unless they fail to stop sending it), I'd be happier.
However, they don't seem interested in learning such things.
Let's all go full head on and install cameras anywhere and every where we can and pump it out to every where we can.
Who Knows, Maybe some of these nutcases will finally get a clue that we are all human, and stop being nutcases.
Information overload is best fought with more information overload.
Tin foil hat still firmly in place...
So if the police interviewed your co-workers, they wouldn't figure that out?
Yes, if you've got 50 people as suspects, the police can go interview your friends. But if you only know that the person probably lives in San Francisco...
And I doubt the police will have a case where the suspect "responds favorably to commercials that use humor"
That was just feeble humor - it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. However, what if the profile suggested a white man who had converted to Islam, living somewhere in San Francisco? And that's all you had to go on? Then you might be able to predict the suspects television preferences quite well, and they might be unusual, so Microsoft's records might suddenly become more interesting.
Do you get pulled over because you drive a Honda and a Honda was recently used in a bank robbery?
No, but if they know that it was a dark green Honda, and that the first letter of the number plate was X, and you have one of those, then you might find the police come knocking on your door.
As a poster to Slashdot, you might be interested to know that recently the Secret Service paid a visit to interview someone who had posted an opinion on kuro5hin, to see if they were a potential threat or not. Yes, they read kuro5hin - they probably read (albeit automatically) Slashdot too.
Now that I have a TiVo, I start watching a show long enough into it to skip the commercials. If I really want to watch commercials, I'll go to Adcritic and watch them there.
I will say, I can watch a helluva lot more TV with the TiVo, though, and I have.
There is nothing irrational about my extreme hatred of plastic sporks from Kentucky Fried Chicken.
I thought this was interesting. Microsoft is teaming up with Predictive Networks, whose vice president happens to be Christopher Painter, the guy who nabbed Mitnick.
Here is an article for those interested on Painter meeting up with Mitnick at a Bush Cyber-Security Conference.
Sure, if they know they want you specifically.
But if they're just going fishing, let's look at what was left out of the article:
"Please give us the set-top-box ID numbers of all people who match the following set of targeted criteria -- people who watch Babylon 5 but who no longer watch any network news. Please give us a copy of the database that matches set-top ID numbers with credit card billing records. The Night Watch will take it from there."Frankly, why the FBI doesn't do this now via subpoena to Doubleclick and the company DC bought with the intention of matching online profiles with real-world identities is beyond me.
("Show me all 15-year old rappers with wack rhymes living with confirmed nutbars in Marin County who recently purchased Autobiography of Malcolm X through Amazon with their mother's credit card...")
Who's watching the watchers?
Microsoft!
*Shudder*
We return you to your regularly scheduled BSOD.
First of all: it might surprise you to learn that not everyone who reads Slashdot is a Linux groupie. However you'd probably be pretty safe in guessing that most who read Slashdot are suspicious of any Microsoft initiative. If you don't understand why that might be, I suggest you haven't been paying attention.
Secondly, as regards to TiVo: I don't regard it as "ok." Which is why I don't own a TiVo. The day somebody markets a box that works just like my VCR or DVD player--in that it doesn't require some lame "subscription" that costs me a recurring hit and opens me up to "tracking" of some sort-- I'll consider it. Until then, they can keep 'em.
You all know that if it were 50x better than the competition you still wouldn't buy it because it said Microsoft on it and you have this irrational hatred for them...
You got that part right. More or less. True, I absolutely refuse to have a Microsoft product in the house. But it's not due to "hatred." I don't "hate" Microsoft. I simply believe their products suck and their business practices are even worse. It's not "irrational" any more than the dislike some Soviet citizens had for their government was "irrational." Tho the Soviet regime did have a tendency to classify disagreement with it as a form of "insanity." Wouldn't surprise me if Billy G. and his cult following felt the same way about dislike for All That Is Microsoft.
I'm glad you're happy in your Microsoft World, tho. Truly I am. It's important to be happy. Probably more important than anything else, wouldn't you agree? (Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!)
Suppose I try to watch Futurama but a ballgame is on, or some post game show, neither of which interest me. What do I do? Generally I turn the sound low (but not muted) and ignore the TV until the stuff I don't care about is over, and then watch what I tuned in for. Or I end up turning the set off in disgust if Futurama isn't aired at all.
So, what does the profiler say? That I like post game shows? No, I most certainly do not like them.
I'm a little concerned about data collection and targetted advertising, but I'm more concerned about the data being wrong or misinterpreted and ending up with more of the stuff I didn't want in the first place.
Which means, yes, that I don't like marketing. In the final analysis, while I agree we can never eradicate the marketing/promotion/advertising sector of our economy, I think that it's clearly bloated and that, more importantly, it is not, as a whole, serving the needs of the larger society.
In particular, it is not good for us to have people observe what we do, and then try and configure our cultural environment, which is a huge part of what constructs our consciousness, as adults as well as as children, in order to get us to part with our money.
I don't want people to find out that I'm an (act surprised) environmentalist, and that start spinning every malarky under the sun as being environmental (Dow-corning hugs trees!) I don't want people tracking my eating habits and advertising junk food when my blood sugar is low. Even if the targeted advertisements aren't 1) lies or 2) promoting an action which is detrimonious to my health or well-being, I don't want them to be tailored in such a fashion that I am less likely to just tune them out.
Why do I care? Because, even though I don't view myself as especially vulnerable to advertisements, my thoughts and ideas can still be affected by the things, and if real scientific cleverness is applied to the question of "how can we find out what sort of ad this demographic group will respond to?", then, well, damn, they'll come up with ads that more people in my cohort will respond to. Even if those ads don't succeed in selling me more stuff, I think that the advertisers will successfully identify things that make those ads poison my thought processes for a longer time.
Let me say also that most justifications that people come up with for having an advertising sector to the economy at all are blatantly self serving.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Bingo! The article was made to make sure you know and have a valid reference, not to get your worked up. Most people who read Slashdot knew that M$ would be doing this. Now we have a place to point because the brazen bitches have admitted what they are going to do. Don't look to M$ to make anyone aware of what they will do with the information. 99.99% (If they manage to sell 10,000, heh!) of people who buy this will have no idea.
Strangely enough, this is much closer to the grocery store card than you might think. I've never, ever seen a grocery store card contract that says, "we will collect infomation on your buying habbits to sell to advertisers, the FBI or anyone else who will pay, and the information will be passed on to creditors in case of chapter 11 filing by this company." I have, however, lived in a place where there were NO grocery stores that did not REQUIRE one of their stupid cards to buy groceries with a check. "Security" against bad checks is the only reason I've ever heard. The alternatives were to carry cash (inconvienent) or use a credit card (even more invasive).
What these companies are abusing is your image for comercial gain without your consent. While a collection of buying habbits, credit records and contact information may not look like a photograph or other traditional likeness, it is a model of your person. Just like that photograph, it is built entirely at the expense of the abuser. In the US, at least, use of your image for comercial purposes without express written consent is against the law.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
He didn't say it WAS 50x better. He said EVEN if it was. And he's right.
In the context of automobiles, a wider track equates to improved stability and better cornering and safety. I've seen your .sig before, and bite my tongue every time I read it, because it's stupid. You seem to be opposing logic, simply because GM chose to latch onto that particular tidbit as a marketing slogan. Well, I'm sorry, but just because you hate the way the fact is being used doesn't make the fact itself any less true.
There's a reason why tall, narrow SUVs roll over all the time, and why Corvettes never do. Can you guess what that reason is?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Oh come on, don't tell me you don't love those mother daughter commercials about tampons... ROTFLOL..
Today they target by demographic and what they think is watching, tomorrow they target by who they know is watching.
Why do I feel like somebodies watching me???
Only 'flamers' flame!
"We know what you did today"
^__^
Yup. The current method of calculating ratings is badly flawed. I'm really tired of shows I like and watch being cancelled, or used as sacrificial pawns against whatever the current ratings blockbuster on the competing network might be. If aggregate viewing statistics can improve the situation then I'll be happy to chip in.
> Meaning, prices are slightly inflated, and then 'discounted'
> to those who give up their personal information. That's my opinion, anyhow.
You're certainly not alone, but my research suggests it's a real discount. Now, my research was by the highly unscientific method of comparing the "no card" price in the stores with cards to the price in stores that didn't offer cards, but it seems they really are paying you for your secrets. I'm certain that some price jacking does take place, but on the whole it doesn't seem to be a scam.
Virg
Any information on the protocols these moronic systems use to communicate? I'd love to build a "video firewall" of sorts to either:
1) Return the information they're expecting as all zeroes...
2) Apply a pseudo-randomization algorithm to the info being returned...
I absolutely refuse to be tracked, or profiled. I don't want to be in the damn database. I don't want the 'rewards' or 'loyalty' programs. I don't want 'targeted advertising' (hell, I skip it all anyway, and turn off the radio during ads...). I don't want to OPT-OUT, I want to OPT-IN (if I choose). I don't want spam, junk mail, or telemarketing. I DO want to be left alone to my own devices.
>The greatest trick the devil pulled was
>convincing the world he didn't exist -- Verbal
>Kint, The Usual Suspects)
Don't you mean KAISER SORSAI?!!! (spelling off, I'm sure)
I used to work for a major long-distance provider. They were kind enough to reimburse most of my long-distance & local charges, which made choosing my phone company a breeze. From time to time (ie, once a week), I would get a telemarketing call from another long-distance company, eager to sell me on their newest hairbrained scheme (what, pay for my long-distance calls, are you nuts??)
It was one of the singular joys of my telemarketing experience to stop that guy, not 5 seconds into his spiel: "I don't want to waste your time, I work for [X], and get my long-distance free. If you've got a more competitive plan, I'd love to hear about it."
I suppose if you've been put off or hung up on fifty times in a row, that's at least a new one. There'd generally be a slight pause, then oftentimes a genuine laugh from the guy/gal on the other end. I could hang up the phone without that pesky anger/guilt I get when I have to blow off a marketer (who's generally some poor schmuck who's only being obnoxious to pay his bills.) The calls were so poorly targetted that getting rid of them was painless.
Er, so my point... I hate getting poorly targetted phone calls, but it's so damn easy to get rid of the things you have no interest in. I don't have a fireplace, so it's easy to deal with that chimney-sweeper. On the other hand, if a marketer knows that I bought a new BMW last year (I wish), and that I regularly have the oil changed by his competitor, he's got incentive to be a whole lot more persistent. Now, if the number of marketing calls I get per week goes down as a result of this technology, that's great. But somehow I doubt that'll be the result.
It's claimed that none of the actors who did the movie knew who Kayzer Sose (also off, but closer) was till the end of the movie.
If you look at a script you can see its Verbal who says it. And don't give the plot away to those who haven't seen it!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Was just looking around at some cool things they are marketing from the Lord of the Rings movie that is due out in a little over a week. WOO HOO! I came across this quote from the books:
One Ring to rule them all, One ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
All I could think of when I read this was: Microsoft - Where do you want us to tell you to go today?
So with a little rewrite we end up with Microsoft's actual marketing strategy:
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all (to the Internet) and in the darkness bind them
In the land of Microsoft where the shadows lie.
If Darwin was right, you'd be dead by now.
When you find yourself flipping through ninety five channels and the most interesting thing on there can't slop the flipping, its time to read a book, kiss the girlfriend or slam out some code.
Nuff said.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Is it legal to compete with Microsoft now?
I actually work in the Interactive TV Space and just attended a conference related to this at the MS Mt View campus.
Just some general info.
First this only affect the cable systems which choose to use the MSTV platform. Right now that's only 1 in the US (a few others scattered around the globe) and that's Charter Communications (owned by Paul Allen hmmm.) And their rollout is still in the real early stages.
The use of MSTV is all via a Set-Top Box, so this is not something that will be sneaked into your house. And something not new, most PVR's (Personal Video Recorders) do the same thing and Direct TV is trying to do something like this via it's Wink Platform.
How most of these systems work is via "Virtual Channels" which are actually HTML based sites that can be viewed via a TV optimized for TV as well. Though some implementations allow general browsing most sites look like crap on TV so a lot of operators are going with a "Walled Garden" approach and only allowing select operators show. Any system that rolls these out will track almost anywhere you go since all calls will go through a centralized server. Basically when a user views a page it gets grabbed from a standard web server and converted to MPEG2 and piped back to the viewer. This is the general approach whether you use MS or not.
One of the issues here is that most users will only be interacting via remote so many are implemeting virtual "wallets" to make purchasing via TV easier. So yes if you use the MSTV servcice the cable operator (not necessarily MS) will be able to track everywhere you go and all that you purchase on their system.
However since it's through your cable operator they allready have a lot of your vitals anyway just by having you sign up for the service.
As an aside most of the personalized ads here (particularily on the MS system) are not TV ads, it refers to the ads on "Virtual Channels"
Hmm I hope this clears some stuff up.
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to m
And the problem with this is .. what? How many dark green Hondas with a license plate that starts with the letter X are there, and how many of them belong to people who live in SanFran? Police detectives do go to people's houses to ask them a few questions based on evidence like "he was driving a light green VW beetle, and the license plate started with MJ.. something" all the time, and I see nothing wrong with this.
Hmm I would think that one would want something up-beat when you are feeling blue. If I were cleaning and feeling blue, and the Country Music Channel came on, I think I would kill myself
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. RUSH
I'm not crazy about the idea, but also believe there's no stopping it. Fortuantele, one of the benefits might be television producers understanding more about their audience and producing better shows because of increased pressure. If television networks (ala Max Headroom 20 Minutes into the Future) are watching realtime response to their programming, they might be less inclined to put so much crap on.
_____________________
I am a Coke-drinking slashdot geek, but will also tolerate Code Red and Mtn. Dew. I like to consume mass quantities of soda pop ;)
Recently the local store hiked prices of 2 liter bottles of Coke to $1.39 in an effort to see if they could. I shit a brick, and swore I'd simply not buy it at that price. Loaded up on Code Red instead, cashiers remarking 'what, no Coca-Cola?', and that only when it was on sale for 99 or 89 cents. If there wasn't anything for 99 or 89 cents, I'd drink tea, or water. I was _not_ about to get jerked around on what I considered a staple beverage (shudder).
Suddenly- either Coke or Dew are _always_ on sale now, to card holders- and often at 89 cents- and O could float a raft with how much I bought, stocking up while it was cheap.
It seems that some types of tight consumer monitoring ARE beneficial, granting only one key point: you've GOT to be willing to refuse to buy what you don't like! I seem to have personally put a big 'don't even think about it' into the data for hiking the price of Coke- other people reacted the same as they mistrust this supermarket anyhow, and the result was, sales got SO hammered and people were SO prone to hunt down only the sale items that the store quickly learned to offer competitive prices, even with stores in larger towns with actual competition. I wouldn't have believed it, but it's happening.
One key point there is, this particular area is the subject of direct competition between Coke and Pepsi, even in this store that's alone in the town. The store could price everything at $1.50 and still sell vaguely well due to location- but it sets up a situation where Pepsi can run a sale at 99 cents and _hammer_ the _crap_ out of Coke sales for that week. The additional price pressure makes the effect even more striking. Coke's only recourse is- another sale! So they alternate weeks at 99 cents or 89 cents, and you need only wait.
I wonder how a similar effect can be made to happen in the computer industry, or other industries that seem to be wedged into a non-price-sensitive mode? If we had two Microsofts we could play them off against each other like that. People have been doing this for PC vendors for a long time...
The older I get the more paranoid I get. Sure personalized ads sounds nice, but it also scares the sh#t out of me. Then again, I have friends that work at these web site analysis companies, and its scary what they are doing TODAY!
Did you know that these ad tracking companies are correlating their browsing with the logs from your ISP? That's right...they definitely know who you are, and what you are surfing to. It's already happening today.
Scary stuff:
1. MS/Tivo are monitoring your tv watching. How long until this information is used against you in a criminal trial? Something like "We notice that you've been watching a lot of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', and yet you claim you are not attracted to underage women?"
2. How long until someone hacks into your Tivo and gets this information as well? Interested in knowing when Mr X is going to be out of the house? Hmmm, lets see when his television is usually powered off.
The problem is, once you start tracking it, where do you draw the line?
I belong to the group of people who believe that information about me should be PRIVATE. Sure I can share it with the world, but only if I CHOOSE, and I PROFIT. Why let another company profit from my information, and without my choice as to who gets the information?
Yes, I'm paranoid...but then I work for a research group that works on televisions that communicate with your refrigerator, and other devices in your home. I am creating a lot of end-user value, but also opening up the home to huge privacy problems.
This truly is the information age.
Well, since I FFWD through ALL the ads when I record a program, will this device decide that I don't like anything and stop showing me ads? I don't shop through MSN or any subsiduaries, and when online information is collected from me, I try to make it as bogus as possible. When the time comes for those optional surveys, I suddenly become an 88 year-old who is concerned only with Martha Stewart. In brick and mortar stores all my payments are done with cash. The information that I give them there is falsified as well. Remember, they can only learn as much about you as you let the.
"to tell them that Joe watches a lot of baseball, likes Situation Comedies, and
responds favorably to commercials that use humor."
I understand how they know he likes baseball and situation comedies, but how do they know he responds favorably to humorous commericals?
Microsoft and others are NOT watching us so they can give us more of what we want. All these major media corporations are watching to see what is popular so they can extort more money from us to get it.
Take for example the actions of AT&T Broadband (my cable TV provider). Over the past year, they have, one channel at a time, taken away the most popular channels from "basic cable" and told us if we want them back we have to subscripe to their "digital cable" service to get it back (at 4 times the price).
So, don't be fooled by these marketing spin doctors who tell you they're watching you for your benefit. They have absolutely NO interest in your benefit. Their ONLY interest is THEIR benefit. If the cable company was truely interested in my benefit, they would put a video multiplexor in my house and give me line item pricing so I could subscribe to the individual channels that I want. And, those channels would be available to all the TV's in my house without having to pay rent (extortion) for those "spy" boxes they want to put on every TV in my house.
It is easier to "kill" netsacapes if they
can spot them ealier!!
I didn't say that he said that he did what she said, oh screw it.
Oops
Good post - excellent application of elasticity theory. My only quibble is that while it holds true in theory, it falls down in practice. Price elasticity is based on personal utility, which cannot be aggregated (in a mathematical sense - this has been proven, but is overlooked in most undergrad economics for simplicity). This has some fairly major impacts on micro and macro in general, but in this case, the assumption that a demand curve can be extrapolated is therefore flawed. You can only therefore predict what you have already observed. If you increase the price from $1.00 to $1.10 and your consumers continue to buy the same quantity, you're lucky. However, that is no guarantee that the same will happen if you increase the price to $1.11.
However, you've hit the nail on the head when you say tracking purchases helps you to know formally whether a price change has had an impact on purchases, and if so, on what type of consumer it has had an impact on. You can then extrapolate this to your broader population and forecast demand / profitability. The supply chain stuff potentially offers huge savings. Good data rocks :)
This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
Yes! Normally, I get plenty pi^H^Hirritated by the actions of Our Borg Friends, but this time I don't care at all.
So they're tracking your TV habits? Have fun tracking mine. I don't have a TV. I don't want a TV. I will never, ever, own a TV.
Try it for a year or so. Really. It's fascinating to see how much mainstream life passes you by (you can't understand half the conversations of your cow-orkers anymore), but you also get any amount of free time which you can use to hack and - yes - read.
Lots of people will tell you "I also watch very little TV, just a bit of X, Y and some Z. And A. And B and C, when it's good". Mhm. Sounds like we should open TV Anonymous.
Have fun, MS. Spy on the couch potatoes.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
You should go back and watch the Buddy Lee and Miller High Life commercials too... maybe I'm just crazy but they really crack me up
~ now you know
Focus on the negative, and that's all you'll ever see.
This ain't new. Microsoft's Internet Explorer contains spyware. Infact, this is exactly why I use Mozilla.