TiVo as Big Brother?
Published February 06, 2004
Adding to the disturbing trend about TiVo monitoring subscriber's viewing habits (ála Big Brother) comes this bit of news:
TiVo and Nielsen Media Research, the television ratings company, announced a deal Wednesday in which TiVo will provide a breakdown of how some of its customers are using their digital video recorders.
That means Nielsen will find out whether participating viewers are watching ``American Idol'' live or watching it a day later and, more importantly, which commercials they're skipping and which were watched a second time.
I have to say that I am a huge fan of TiVo; it has completely changed the way that I watch TV. But this whole monitoring of data is rather disturbing, to say the least.
- TiVo as Big Brother?
- Published: February 06, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Culture: Media, Video: News, Video: Television
- Writer: Casper
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Comments on this articleComments
Good point about the money, Tom.
I don't care what information anyone's collecting about my TV habits, as long as it remains anonymous. If you're just Viewer # 946KL77R, what's the big deal?
Of course, I'm assuming that they'll be nice and honest and trustworthy. Pardon me while I collapse a lung with my wild laughter.
Hmm, I do not like this at all. Might be time for me to utilyze a media center PC for PVR purposes and save the 10+ bones a month ... grrr.
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It's more disturbing to me that they're likely making money off of that data - and we're still paying for the service. Make it free and they can take all the data they want. If I'm paying, I don't think it's fair they should be selling that data to marketing researchers. In fact, there's a great way for them to give customers control - offer the service free if you don't mind being monitored (I wouldn't care) or allow them to pay and not be monitored.