TiVo To Sell Customer Data 469
camusflage writes "Yahoo has a story that details TiVo's plans to sell customer data to advertisers and broadcasters. While individuals will be anonymous, data will be made available in aggregate form, including ZIP code. The San Jose Mercury News has additional coverage on the news."
I wish I could say I was surprised.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if TiVo includes any data like "we know that such-and-such in this zip code makes between 40,000-80,000 a year and has 2.3 kids, etc."
Is there an opt-out feature? Can I keep the anonymous data from getting to TiVo the first place (apart from unplugging the unit)?
OK this is not terrible... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not a big deal. (Score:5, Interesting)
I care if Tivo sells a list of the programs to watch to a local advertiser who will then call me on the phone, bang on my door, or spam me with "special offers just for me." Tivo, in that case, is attempting to act as a middleman in setting up a business relationship that I have no interest in.
I do not care if Tivo sells data about how many people in California, or even my ZIP code, watched Buffy last night.
Now, there are issues with privacy policies; if Tivo has said that they wouldn't do this and then have, they've lied to their customers, and even the most paranoid privacy freak has a right to expect companies to live up their word.
But really, there are enough *very* significant privacy issues today that relate to *government* spying on *individuals* with no probably cause, warrant, etc.
I'm not at all sure that groups, such as "everyone who lives in my ZIP code" are, or should be, entitled to the same level of privacy protection that individuals deserve.
I mean, if I go down to the street corner and count how many people push the "push to cross" button and then sell that data to the people who make "push to cross" buttons, am I somehow violating peoples' privacy? If I do it in 10 cities? 100? Does it matter if I'm incorporated and have employees or not?
I'm willing to hear the other side, and I certainly subscribe to the slippery-slope argument, but for the most part I think this kind of corporate aggregation of data is at most a very minor concern in a world filled with huge privacy issues.
Cheers
-b
Cool with me. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't watch ads. Period. I watch a few good shows, and I ignore the rest.
On a larger scale, my dream would be for the entire system of free-but-with-forced-ad-watching television to fall to pieces. Sure, it might mean the end of television as mass-media, but it would also force a lot of mouth-breathers to do something other than watch TV every night.
Of course, I'm pretty tired right now, so make what you will of the preceding. ^_~
Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly right. (Score:5, Interesting)
This allows us to do trending and catch things that would otherwise be impossible.
Trending is good when it's aggregate data. When the book police come to your door it's bad.
I'm tired of this (Score:5, Interesting)
TiVo has been selling your demographic data for years. Superbowl advertisers bought information from TiVo to see which Brittney Spears commercial got the most replay and in which kinds of households.
This has absolutely nothing to do with an infrigement of rights, as it all strictly adheres to an agreement between customer and provider made fully clear at the time of purchase.
To offset the costs of building and maintaining a complicated system that provides an excellent service to consumers they sell information on their demographics. Anyone wanna tell me how that makes them evil all of a sudden?
Re:Demographics are not an invasion of privacy. (Score:4, Interesting)
Then why do people need to write the rest of my address on the envelope? Zip+4 may in some cases may indicate as much as the same apartment building (if it has sufficient units) or resolve to the same single-family house if you happen to be the only house for miles around (in which case you probably never use the +4) but I doubt these cases are abundant.
However, you do have an interesting point...
Re:Focused Advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I wish I could say I was surprised.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Other people have already mentioned that you can opt-out by calling TiVo. What they haven't mentioned is that when you do so, your TiVo stops uploading the viewing data altogether. I think there was some technical/debugging logs that might've still been sent though. It's been awhile since I've read up on it, but you can probably find more information on one of the TiVo hacking forums.
Re:Kickback? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a Tivo owner, I like this (Score:4, Interesting)
I like it because I think it will show several interesting things about viewing habits. I think they will find that quality shows tend to have more loyal viewers than cheaper programming. I think they will also find that Tivo owners *do* watch some commercials, and that commercials are much more likely to be watched if they are *good*. I would hope than advertisers are smarter than we give them credit for, and I expect they won't mind, for example, if men fast forward past commercials for women's products.
Re:Good for us (Score:5, Interesting)
stick it to the Nielsens... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good for them... (Score:2, Interesting)
Might mean that broadcasters can actually release relevant programming for indavidual markets for a change.
I think it's great.
The outcome can only mean more star trek in my local area.
So life is good.
Nice and psychological (Score:3, Interesting)
I love the "I paid more for it so it must be better" effect. My favorite example (outside of IT purchasing practices) was a weight loss formula sold on TV. Their main justification for charging $150/bottle was that you wouldn't pay that if it didn't work. Nice and circular argument, and I suspect lost on the public. And obviously they find suckers.
I expect, as you state, it's similar for newspapers and their advertisers, so they charge a token cost at the newsstand.
This is not a horrible thing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets see more shows like farscape, firefly, who's line is it anyway, futurama, etc.
Anonymity (Score:2, Interesting)
I will only belive Tivo's privacy posture if the data is stored anonymously as opposed to simply used anonymously. The only reason they can possibly have to store user data now is because they are effectively reserving the right to de-anonymize later for business purposes.
There is much info on Tivo privacy; one link is http://www.privacyfoundation.org/privacywatch/pri
As a last point, the UK Data Protection Act insists the people-data databases declare data use on forming. If the data use is changed (eg info can now be sold, before not so) then the historical data must be scrapped. That theoretically protects against data misuse by collecting under false pretenses, or complete about turns on privacy statements that have happening in USA.
Aggregate vs Individual data makes no difference. (Score:2, Interesting)
Build a filter device if you don't like it (Score:3, Interesting)