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Google's Reach Hits Your Tivo
accido writes "As reported by The LA Times, Google has now decided to expand its marketing and data collection to include what you watch on your Tivo. The data collected would help Google, who sells TV ads, show who watches which commercials and who skips right over them. The article outlines how this could be bad for networks that cash in whether you watch the ad or not. Does this mean fewer commercials for viewers? Not likely, but one can hope."
Rain has nothing to do with this.
Of Tivo users skip commercials. I'm sure the other 1% either don't know they have Tivo, don't know how to use Tivo, or watch so much television that their mental capacity to understand the concept of skipping commercials has been severely damaged.
The article outlines how this could be bad for Networks who cash in weather you watch the ad or not
They have ads there too? Sunny and a 50% chance of Cialis?
I wonder when this arms race for our eyeballs will peak. I'm not angry with targeted ads, overall it makes for a smarter consumer when after a generation or two we learn to identify market-speak at the cost of the last company to the block's poorly-spent campaign. In the mean time there's a greater likelihood I'll chance across something that is actually valuable to me, or a funny Geico ad :)
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
Seriously, who the fuck still watches TV? There hasn't been anything good on any channel for years now, not that there was much good on in the first place.
Go see a play at the local theater, watch a live band at a nearby pub, go for a walk, or read a book. Those are all much more enlightening and entertaining options.
Why not just set up mythtv and have it auto-extract?
These days, is there anyone left who does NOT block all these data collection and tracking things?
The trouble is that they invent them fast enough that it's hard to keep up. Web bugs, cross site scripts, I block everything I know about, but it takes a little bit of diligence to keep up with it. And some, like TIVO, you can see coming a mile off, so are easy to never start using in the first place.
If we don't stick up for a shit-free internet, soon it will all be commercialized into uselessness. TV 2.0!
Thankfully, unlike TV, it's in OUR hands, and it can only go to crap if we let it. So just block attempts at tracking everyone's every move, and problem solved.
Yes, it takes a little bit of sacrifice. But so does anything that's worth while.
For me, nothing beats the Flintstones cigarette ads.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAExoSozc2c
a big pant-load of results based on guessing what the analyzed data means.
For example, I usually skip commercials. Sometimes when I am multi-tasking thus only half-watching I forget to skip the commercials, but I am not watching them either. And so on...
One thing I know for sure, I picked the wrong business, weathermen and marketing analysis experts amount to the same thing; getting paid for guessing with no repercussions for being wrong. A perfect job!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
If I was suddenly forced to watch commercials (i.e. no 30 second skip and/or no fast forward) I'd probably dump cable and just watch what I can get on Netflix instead. It would be sad though because there are down-times during the latter parts of my evenings when it's too early to go to bed but I'm too tired to do anything else and I want something passive and relatively low-bandwidth brainpower-wise to do in the meantime, and the few shows TiVo records for me are perfect for that.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Sounds like my kind of weather!
Is it an internet-provided TV channels service? Is it better than cable or satellite? Do they offer their services in Europe or is it blocked by IP address?
..Google will "team up" me to extract info from my mythbackend.
Tivo was cool in its day, but part of the reason I modernized was to take total control. It's mine, all mine, and if you want a piece, you talk to me. This is why I fuckin' love Free Software.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yeah, look where that's gotten us.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
then it just skips commercials without even needing a remote button push and invasion of privacy like this.
Tivo actually automatically downloads commercials, perhaps that is what they are tracking. I have watched a couple about new cars coming out. However, if Google checks our viewing habits they will see we watch mostly Netflix "instant" at about $9.00 a month it is the best deal for us and so far commercial free.
I spend way too much money on cable every month. I don't understand why I can't "order" say Gilligan's Island (the one when they find the radioactive seeds) any time I want. I would sit through a commercial or two to be able to watch what I want. I just don't understand why the way we watch TV doesn't change. Instead of focus groups and canceled new sitcoms, let me watch what I know I already want to watch, then I'll watch the commercials too. How is "The Greatest American Hero" (the first episode they get to meet the aliens) worth more sitting in some vault worth more to the TV folks than me watching what I want and willing to sit through a sales pitch?
Fewer commercials? Not a chance. I think what we'll find is more channels being shown to people who just skip over them.
This article just makes me hate google more and more, you have no idea how many patents they have covering every aspect of every possible search engine. Isn't google using illegal means to gain information for their, financial gain then to bombard us with advertisements. This has to come an end, how far can a company go before it gets out of hand. the way this is going googles going to get worse than microsoft, thats a complement microsoft. Isn't this a breach of privacy? How bad will it become before, anyone will put their foot down? Also, Isn't it illegal with the methods that the networks are using to get personal information, in order to fine tune the battering ram of advertisements the besiege us with every day? Isn't time for the government to put their foot down. For the right of privacy of every person in this country, along with the world, as google's masive hand starts to cover the world.
Watching commercials on a Tivo Now i live in Canada, so I don't have Tivo, but I have the equivalent in Canadian terms. My question is this. Why would anyone in their right mind watch commercials. That's like buying a car and then pushing it around yourself. Definitely not taking advantage of the technology.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
Actually it probably means advert placements for those demographics that skip ads become cheaper, whilst those that actually watch adverts become more expensive. Not a massive shift, but expect to see the cheap slots becoming less sophisticated, and open to ever-smaller companies, which could be a good thing.
Alternatively, maybe the ad-breaks for the skipping-demographics will get shorter, to discourage people from skipping, so ensuring they watch the bother to watch 1 advert that is on (rather than skipping all 20).
Grand Theft Wiki
If they are able to provide target ads for viewers, this could be good for digital video distribution. This market really needs to go and improve. Cable TV is too overpriced for the "content" they provide. We put the phone on the internet and now its time to put the TV there as well.
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.
While an a purely ethics level I don't care for MS's business practices at least they tend to usually just screw other businesses, Google frankly scares the crap out of me. Its pretty easy to avoid MS but avoiding becoming a google statistic is becoming increasingly impossible.
If Google or others sites are recording & selling our search keys, here's a solution:
- develop an application that - while our browser is idle -
selects BOGUS search keys AT RANDOM and sends
them to Google as if we'd entered them in real searches
Ie, feed Google a "noisy" stream of search keys, at about
the same speed as we'd be sending them, if they were
real searches.
I have no doubt that such an application would become
very popular, very soon...
Any takers?
PS Are there any such applications in existence today?
I don't think such a thing would be popular. Most people don't care, but those few that do would find it easier to use a service with a better privacy policy. Perhaps Bing or Yahoo! could profit from the backlash in the unlikely event that one should materialize.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Firefox addon TrackMeNot does this. Been using it for eons.
With either Dish or DirectTV, there is no way for them to collect data on you but the boxes you put in your living room do all the same stuff: record tv, let you skip ahead, etc. The interface isn't as slick as TiVo but I can live with that.
DirectTV does have a phone cord that they encourage you to plug in (you need it for "on-demand" tv show purchasing) but I've left it unplugged for 4 years and I have no problems. I'm sure the unit tracks what I record, watch or listen to but that data doesn't get back to the mothership.
But if you've got Comcastic Internet and Comcastic TV so that you get a better price, well that better price is what you're selling your privacy to them for.
The most likely outcome of this is that the networks will finally start an arms race on commercial avoidance strategies.
I really don't get why it is that they still make all of the commercials exactly 30 seconds in length. Ten years ago, I had a VCR with a button that would fast-forward 30 seconds and stop.
Today, MythTV does a darned good job of auto-flagging commercials, and then auto-skipping them for me. And the default fast-forward time is that magical 30 seconds. I haven't watched a commercial in years. I mean, really, VCR manufacturers had it figured out a decade ago, and the networks haven't caught on yet!?!
(OK, if this post is what finally gives the networks a clue, then feel free to hunt me down. I'd deserve it.)
absolutely no mention in TFA of tivo's existing opt-out policy (keeps your tivo from reporting usage and viewing history of your box) and if it will also apply to google's sticky fingers.
(...) Does this mean fewer commercials for viewers? Not likely, but one can hope.
Quite possibly not. It would mean more relevant commercials and less annoying flashing and screaming ads. Before Google entered, advertising on the internet with mere text was unheard of. By using very relevant ads both viewers/users and companies benefit. The issue with todays TV ads is that they are highly irrelevant. It's up to the company to make sure the ad gets displayed at the right time of day. Perhaps Google could improve upon this, so some of us can be freed of vacuum cleaner ads, unless they are robots.
If Google or others sites are recording & selling our search keys, here's a solution:
- develop an application that - while our browser is idle -
selects BOGUS search keys AT RANDOM and sends
them to Google as if we'd entered them in real searches
Ie, feed Google a "noisy" stream of search keys, at about
the same speed as we'd be sending them, if they were
real searches.
I have no doubt that such an application would become
very popular, very soon...
Any takers?
PS Are there any such applications in existence today?
Track Me Not
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/index.html
trackmenot
TrackMeNot Firefox plug-in. It uses an rss feed of the New York Times front page to pull terms and search spam 5 different search engines, including Google. It can be set to 10 a minute, 1 a minute, 1 an hour, etc.
I'm not the developer, just a fan.
PS Are there any such applications in existence today?
TrackMeNot
Yep. TrackMeNot's been available for a little while.
And here's Bruce Schneier's reason not to use it.
You could also try CustomizeGoogle or the Scroogle scraper...