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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."
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?
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.
Some of us watch commericals on YouTube for comedic value. To be fair, it's usually vintage ones (Try refreshing Ayds to lose weight! Ayds helped me lose 15 lbs!)
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Um... what kind of a question is that? 99% of the US population? Oh wait, sorry, I see - you were being "ironic" and "cool" because you don't do what everybody else does. No, yeah, you're right, there's absolutely nothing of value on any television channel anywhere, and probably never has been. While we're at it, let's throw out all our radios and computers.
Yeah, alot of people don't realize how much better life is without TV. When I moved out for the first time I didn't have the cash for cable, it was something I could live without. After 1 month of no TV I began to realize how much more time I had for things I always wanted to do. I took up sketching, I go stargazing, even started programming side projects.
TV just brings you down, even if you only watch it for an hour, after that hour you feel lazy and you just want to go to bed or play video games. It ends up ruining the whole evening. Without it, I feel obligated to DO something. Usually its absense will help me dedicate that half an hour to chores, and then I will want to do something more creative, like write a song.
Anytime I'm over visitting someone else's place, and they have the TV on, 99% of the time I can't stand what is on there, because its SO trashy. The only channel I would even bother watching now is discovery, for Mythbusters and such.
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.
All your neighbors. TV has become a "necessity". I overheard a guy complaining about his cable being out. I quote, "My children haven't had TV in two weeks!" I really had to stifle a laugh.
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.
Google will eventually have a system where as you enter the pub, you show your ID, and then that information will go into a database. Read a book? Google will collect the data from Visa and MC and AMEX to see what books you're reading and then use that data to market other shit to you. Local theater? Buy those ticket and well, you have to show your ID for pickup - again, data in the database. Live band? Show ID at the door and pay for those drink with your credit card? There you go.
It's not big brother. It's Google and other companies - Orwell was close. It's not the state that will spy (directly at least), it's going to be corporate American.
The state will just buy the information and technically do nothing wrong.
Technology - making life better for all.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Parent poster doesn't even OWN a TV
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!
The shows, on the other hand, are usually terrible.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
then it just skips commercials without even needing a remote button push and invasion of privacy like this.
I've have used tivo for over 3 years and tivo has commercials that can't be fast fowarded through.
though they rarely come up, but they do exsist
Reminds me of an old David Spade bit where he tells of two girls he knew in high school that would argue over who watched less television; each trying to out-bohemian the other.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
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.
"Anytime I'm over visitting someone else's place, and they have the TV on, 99% of the time I can't stand what is on there, because its SO trashy."
Unless the TVG is holding a gun to your friends heads, it's really your friends you need to think about, not the TV.
After 8 year of no TV, we just got satellite, and it's freakin' awesome. I really enjoy having TV.
Next year we get a TiVo.
TV is just a medium. what you do with it is what counts.
"after that hour you feel lazy and you just want to go to bed or play video games."
where you hittin' the pipe at the same time?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's true, in part, but the difficulty is that I don't get to choose what commercials I watch. So even though there are some truly horrific shows out there, I just don't watch them. Even if the worst commercial ever produced is only 1/10 as bad, it could still play during a show I do watch, therefore exposing me to it (unless I have a DVR). Therefore, of what I see (rather than TV in general) commercials are usually the worst part. And that's not even getting in to how repetitive they become...
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?
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.