Is anyone worried that Tivo tracks what you rewind/review? (1 Viewer)

[Michael St. Clair]

I prefer all my watching habits be recorded and collected, maybe fewer of my favorite shows will be canceled if my viewership is reported.

 

[LannyFR]

I keep hearing this concern all over the web, on different forum boards and I dont understand it. Can someone please tell me what is the WORST possible thing that could come of TiVo knowing that I watched Star Trek Enterprise last night at 10:40 off my internal hard drive? Even if it wasnt anonymous?

 

[Luke_Y]

Nope, I couldn't care less. As a matter of fact, if TiVo want's to, they can send a little guy over to peek in my window every day if it has the potential to improve my TiVo experience.

 

[GordonL]

I don't care either, as long as it truly is anonymous. However, using "Shopping Cards" at grocery or drug stores does offend me, even though they also claim to be anonymous. Go figure. Maybe it's the human contact element.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

How about this:

"The office of xxxxLand Security has issued some announcements. They are instructing airport agents to detain passengers who are carrying copies of the Almanic. The 911 terrorists used the Almanic to find suggestions for locations of terror attacks. OHS is also reporting that suspected terror groups made recordings of popular crime drama television shows such as "Threat Matrix", "24", "CSI" and "Law and Order". It is suspected that they were trying to learn police and investigative agencies procedures so they could better hide their own activities from law enforcement."

So you are a investigator of a new cabinent-level organization charged with identifying possible terror groups. You have the power to now plant bugs in peoples computers and perform wire-taps without court orders, but how do you identify out of millions of houses who have a higher-probability of being a terrorist so you can 'keep an eye on them' (all in the nature of public-safety)?

How about targeting people who record crime/drama television programs? How about cross-referencing to people who have rented a large number of movies that feature terrorists such as "Speed", "Blown Away", or "Long Kiss Goodnight"?

You go to Tivo/Dish/DirectTV for the television information, you go to Blockbuster for the movie rental information, and just to narrow down the pool - you contact the large magazine distributors and find names of people who have had subscriptions to "Guns and Ammo", "Field and Stream", "Newsweek" and "Popular Science".

The names that match the television, movie and magazine lists are now considered "threat risks" and their credit-card and cell-phone usage is examined. Should these look 'suspicious' - these people now have their computers bugged, phones wire-tapped and they go on the list at the airport so they are denied access to aircraft.

Sure - it's all based on a theory pulled out of someones butt about what a terrorist MIGHT be doing. But it will put hundreds of thousands of citizens on 'hot lists' simply because a fledgling organization needs to be doing something to justify their new budget/existance.

It's all possible because our right to privacy has quietly been circumvented since 9/11.

(And if I was working for HLS - this is exactly the type of project/probability model I would try to develop/build a career out of.)

Note: I have not even gotten into the analysis where more probability points are added based on your telephone calls and usage patterns. I did create software to do this for a major cell-phone company in the weeks after 9/11 at the request of the FBI.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Bob, if such a scenario should come to pass, the fact that TiVo can be used to track viewing habits would be the least of our problems -- and I think you've said as much by referring to Blockbuster and magazine subscription lists.

The issue here isn't what information should or shouldn't be gathered; it's what safeguards should be in place to prevent the misuse of such information. We live in a world in which information is gathered about us all the time, and there's no realistic possibility that such gathering can be stopped. Rather than fixate narrowly on one particular (and, in this instance, not especially widespread) form of gathered information, the focus should be on legal and institutional measures to prevent abuse. Unfortunately, HTF is the wrong forum for such a discussion, as it would inevitably diverge into the political arena.

M.

 

[Mike Wilk]

I am more worried that my vote is actually tabulated than whether Tivo data might show my preference for my favorite shows. I'd certainly prefer that the networks DID know what I like for a change.

YMMV

 

[LannyFR]

I may stand alone on this, but with terrorism a real threat in todays world, I for one would feel safer knowing that if someone was scouring crime dramas AND gun magazines AND how-to bomb manuals, etc, that someone somewhere might get a heads up just to take a LOOK at what was going on with that person. (It doesnt mean that actions would be taken based soley on viewing habbits).

 

[MarkusBohu]

Well, that question is hard to answer. In part I am leaning towards the opinion that if I use their services, it's really up to them what they do with the info about which one of their services I use. If I don't like it I could always stop using their services.

But then, that last part is not always true: If I don't like my credit information to be tracked and distributed, could I stop using banks & credit cards? -- Only if I plan never to rent an appartment or car (or Tivo for that matter...)

Anyway: The "worst" that can happen is often much more subtle than the black helicopters circling over my appartment because I watched a show that didn't fit with Tivo's or someone else's views
The issue is that these "anonymous" data collection techniques teach us (networks, etc.) to rely on this purely statistical "lowest common denominator" type of information. So we will soon have even more WWW-Smackdown, Survivor and Justin Timberlake and less serious news, independent movies, etc.

--But then again, I can always cancel and stop watching TV altogether... (OK, that's not likely...

 

[Brian L]

Well, there would be at least one other person standing with you, Larry

While I have never been much of a civil libertarian, since 9/11, I have been of the opinion, like you it appears, that some amount of data gathering may help prevent similar events from happenning in the future (for reference on my views on this, catch just about any episode of Dennis Miller...he articlulates my views on privacty issues pretty well).

But, back on point, I personally don't spend much time worrying about what data is being collected about me. If you have serious concerns about personal privacy, then you might want to consider cancelling your cell phone account, all credit cards, bank accounts, and any thing else that may be a source of your private data.

Wasn't it Scott MacNealy (Sun Microsystems) in a speech or testifying before congress that said, something to the affect that "You have no privacy. Get over it".

Like it of not, I think he's right.

BGL

 

[MarkusBohu]

Probably--as long as we are talking about the USA (and maybe a few other countries)

keep in mind that in many other countries this is in no way the case and the reason is that people there do believe in protecting their privacy. (then again, most don't have anything like TIVO--at least it's not very popular--so again it comes down to our own choices)