TiVo To Sell Customer Data

camusflage writes "Yahoo has a story that details TiVo's plans to sell customer data to advertisers and broadcasters. While individuals will be anonymous, data will be made available in aggregate form, including ZIP code. The San Jose Mercury News has additional coverage on the news."

Comments

Re:Opt Out Option

[pashdown]

After TiVo sold their DirecTivo unit to DirecTV, I received a letter from them regarding their new and improved privacy policy. It stated that I had to opt-out to DTV if I didn't want my viewing data collected. This in spite of the fact that I had already done so with TiVo Corp.

I called the number on the DTV letter to opt-out and was told that I needed to call another number. I called the other number, and was told that I needed to provide written notice. I wrote the written notice and asked for confirmation, which I never received.

In addition, the boolean variable in the TiVo software that controlled whether data was uploaded mysteriously disappeared after the box got the DTV update. This means that not only does the DTV software not have the facility for stopping the upload, but DTV has no control over whether it happens or not. It always happens.

Draw your own conclusions. I'm glad I've got TiVo net so I can copy a choice JPEG over my logfile to upload to those lying bastards on a nightly basis.

Re:Good for them...

[L. VeGas]

Howzabout...

If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

or

I might be boring, but I sure am stupid.