Posted on 02/04/2007 1:17:12 PM PST by Reeses
TiVo revealed the other day that it's offering TV networks and ad agencies a chance to receive second-by- second data about which programs the company's 4.5 million subscribers are watching and, more importantly, which commercials people are skipping.
This raises a pair of troubling questions: Is TiVo, which revolutionized TV viewing with its digital video recording technology, now watching what people watch? And is it selling that sensitive info to advertisers and others?
...
TiVo's potential to monitor (and embarrass) millions of people was made clear in 2004 after Janet Jackson's right breast made a surprise appearance during the Super Bowl halftime show.
TiVo reported that this fleeting glimpse of celebrity flesh "drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured ... as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo's unique capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again."
More than a few subscribers probably thought later that this wasn't the sort of thing they wanted stored in some corporate database.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Is there anybody out there who would really be horribly embarassed by this?
TiVO is one of the greatest inventions ever! Commercials? What commercials?
Uhm, that'd be ALL of them.
I used to work for TiVo. Actually , they're just storing total stats - not individual unit stats to a specific user.
In fact - there will be a crew burning the midnight oil in Alviso, CA tonight at corporate compiling the numbers. Best tech company I ever worked for.
I HATE it when I'm watching live and try to Tivo my way forward past the commercials.
I hate it almost as much when I'm watching the commercials, and my wife has to remind me that it's on TiVo.
It's the best thing ever for watching Sports. Start recording, go screw around with something else for 20 min, and watch with no commercials. If you get back to live, take another break!
They've been doing that since the VCR days.
Amen brother
I've only had it for a year.
My adult daughter convinced me to get it.
I basically got the box for free (non HD).
On DirecTV it's only 6 bucks a month.
What a great value.
How can you arive at total stats without there somewhere being a record of the individual stats from which they're accumulated? They may not be tracking and reporting on individuals routinely, but the data has to be out there somewhere to support the totals that they do report.
Given the opportunity I would skip all commercials.
Not if I have my phone unplugged!
It does seem to blur the line between real time and reality TV.
I guess a better way of saying it is that TiVo doesn't save individual DVR stats when they are compiling the totals.
That's great for watching anything with a group. You can pause and talk about what you're watching without missing what happens next; it's more fun than a room full of people silently staring straight ahead.
Geez, am I the only one who can program his VCR? I have a VCR on every TV and record what I want, when I want. VCRs are now $60 new and there's no monthly fee. I haven't seen a commercial since 1985.
Easily -- the records aren't flagged with a unique identifier. Imagine a turnstile that counts the number of people entering a subway station but doesn't record their identity, or a stack of letters without a return address, so you can count who said what without linking the opinions to individuals.
Not that I trust TiVo when they say they're not collecting individual stats -- I'd need an independent audit of their source code and database to be reassured.
Actually, I think TiVo is causing advertisers to become more creative, and interesting. I used to like many European commercials, many were downright funny. I see more of that appearing on US TV.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.