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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.
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.
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.
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...
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)
On Sky Digital TV in the UK, there are advertisments that carry an on screen reminder to 'click now' for a free sample. Clicking takes you to an advertiser's page that can then connect through your phone line to send your address details.
To step up to 'buy now' functions isn't that much of a stretch of the imagination.
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
Perhaps it's able to tell whether you FUHFUHWD through the ads or not. Or if you go back and rewatch an ad you've already seen.
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.
I think they said it can create a 'profile' based on remote control usage, so it the remote is doing a lot of channel surfing and stops at a particular show and some ad, it can record that "user 1 likes such-and-such", then another user may only change channels between shows or whatever and records what on during that useage pattern. Kinda like analyzing how different people type to distinguish who's at the keyboard, a hunt-and-pecker or a speed typist - then they can record what content is being typed for two different users even tho they don't id by logging in, retina scan or whatever.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
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.
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
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..."
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
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.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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
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'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.
They'd miss my wife. Our cable box is programmed to change channels at specific times in order to support programmed recording with the VCR. If she's home, she will literally watch ABC from 11am (The View) through 6:30pm (end of the local news). Even worse, when the box changes the channel, it turns off after changing but the channel is still fed to the tv. You can't change the channel until you turn the cable box back on.
I *always* have to turn on the cable box when I get home from work, because she simply does not want or need to change the channel ALL DAY.
Intelligent Life on Earth
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
Knowing the way marketers think they'll phrase it so you're not sure if you're buying it or not. "Would you not like to not pass on not buying this product?" "Uhh....yes?" "Congratulations! You have just purchased this boxed edition of every episode of the 1974-1975 season of Early Morning Farm News"
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.
Man! does that suck to live with someone who watches so much TV? I maybe watch 3 hours a week, if that, and i have a few friends that watch probably 6-7 hours a day, and it is really irritating (mostly because their interests differ greatly from mine), so i usually bring a book to read while they watch 4 sports games in a row. but i couldn't imagine my wife being like that.
some poeple may like it, and that's great if you like it or don't mind, but i would be unhappy.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
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...")
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.
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!
> 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
Yeah, when I'm working at home, I harass her to get off the sofa, but if I'm at work, it doesn't bother me. I guess that's what I get for wanting to let my wife never have to work a day in her life. Now she doesn't work a day in her life! :)
As for me, when I'm home, I'll leave CNN on in the background for 8 to 10 hours a day, but I would be perfectly content with just 30 minutes of non-news programming every day: The Drew Carey Show. If I could just find someone, somewhere, posting TiVO mpegs of that show, I wouldn't be considering getting one for myself for Christmas!
Please, someone call me when the day finally arrives that you can hang your TiVO right out there in DALNet's #tvepisodesonline! How hard can THAT be? How about #tivosonline? An IRC client and an fserve bot is all you need. I've seen a TiVO streaming video over a LAN and playing back on a local tv simultaneously before.
Intelligent Life on Earth
I DO want to be left alone to my own devices.
If Microsoft is making those devices, or partnered with the company that is, you can forget about being left alone.
Eventually these companies will become so dependent on the sales of demographic data that they'll either charge you an addtional monthly fee to opt out, or make giving up your data a condition of the service, which would promptly wink out if you started returning zeros in place of the sweet, sweet data they were expecting.
~Philly
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.
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...
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.