Post by Mech on Feb 6, 2004 10:30:19 GMT -5
TiVo users, beware: Big Brother's watching
February 5, 2004
BY PHIL ROSENTHAL TELEVISION CRITIC
www.suntimes.com/output/rosenthal/cst-ftr-phil05.html
Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson exposed more than her distinctive taste in jewelry at halftime of the Super Bowl.
You know TiVo? That newfangled digital video recorder that enables you to watch live telecasts as if they were on tape and remembers to record your favorite shows even when you don't?
Justin and Janet's little dance with community standards served to remind us that when we watch TiVo, our TiVo can watch us.
"The close of Timberlake and Jackson's halftime duet drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured," the company said in a news release issued Monday. "Viewership spiked up to 180 percent as viewers used unique TiVo DVR capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again."
You thought no one else knew you went back to see if you saw what you thought you saw, that you put Jackson's image on freeze frame so you could show your spouse and your pals or how you went back and forth to watch Justin tear Janet's dress, put it back, tear it and so on.
Turns out there was a spy in the room with you, taking notes, keeping track of every click on your remote control. Your TiVo box may have been paying closer attention to what you were watching than you were.
Monday's revelation was based on a random sampling of 20,000 TiVo boxes. The owners of those boxes were unaware they were being tracked during the Super Bowl, but TiVo says it knows next to nothing about the box owners. Owners like you. Like me.
"It noticed that boxes were doing that, but it didn't notice it was Phil's box that was doing that," TiVo spokesman Scott Sutherland said, explaining that, despite the phone hookup that allows your box to exchange info with the company's home computer, very little data on your habits is shared typically. "We don't need to know who you are to make sure TiVo records 'Friends' for you."
That's some relief. But the potential for TiVo to know more and sell that info is obvious. A deal between TiVo and A.C. Nielsen, the firm that monitors overall TV viewership, was announced Wednesday that will have a group of TiVo users volunteering to have their viewing monitored for just that purpose.
So long as we stay out of that group, Sutherland says we shouldn't worry even though our TiVo box can notice which channels we zap past and on which channels we pause.
He says it should be of no concern the box can log which commercials we sit through, which ones we fast-forward over and which ones we rerun again and again because they're more entertaining than regular programming.
TiVo, he says, has no reason to pinpoint the exact moment at which we give up on Jay Leno's monologue and return to David Letterman or to Ted Koppel or to that late-night flick on Cinemax. Not yet anyway.
"I'm terrified every time I get on an airplane that it's going to fall out of the sky, but I know that it's much more reasonable to believe ... that plane is going to take off and land where it's supposed to go," Sutherland said. "I understand people have privacy concerns [about TiVo]. But when you look at the actual track record and the policy and procedures, that may not be altogether justifiable."
Of course privacy can be a two-way street. Say you're accused of a crime and you claim you were at home watching TiVo. Can the records at TiVo, if subpoenaed, provide the necessary info to back up your alibi?
"The bad news is no, they could not," Sutherland said. "The good news is [that information] is in your home. It's in your box. They're not going to have to get it from TiVo. They can take it out of your box, and find it themselves."
So when you have TiVo, you're never watching alone. You may be embarrassed now that TiVo noticed you ogling at Janet Jackson, but it also someday could keep you out of jail.
Lawyers will call it the TiVo Defense.
February 5, 2004
BY PHIL ROSENTHAL TELEVISION CRITIC
www.suntimes.com/output/rosenthal/cst-ftr-phil05.html
Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson exposed more than her distinctive taste in jewelry at halftime of the Super Bowl.
You know TiVo? That newfangled digital video recorder that enables you to watch live telecasts as if they were on tape and remembers to record your favorite shows even when you don't?
Justin and Janet's little dance with community standards served to remind us that when we watch TiVo, our TiVo can watch us.
"The close of Timberlake and Jackson's halftime duet drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured," the company said in a news release issued Monday. "Viewership spiked up to 180 percent as viewers used unique TiVo DVR capabilities to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again."
You thought no one else knew you went back to see if you saw what you thought you saw, that you put Jackson's image on freeze frame so you could show your spouse and your pals or how you went back and forth to watch Justin tear Janet's dress, put it back, tear it and so on.
Turns out there was a spy in the room with you, taking notes, keeping track of every click on your remote control. Your TiVo box may have been paying closer attention to what you were watching than you were.
Monday's revelation was based on a random sampling of 20,000 TiVo boxes. The owners of those boxes were unaware they were being tracked during the Super Bowl, but TiVo says it knows next to nothing about the box owners. Owners like you. Like me.
"It noticed that boxes were doing that, but it didn't notice it was Phil's box that was doing that," TiVo spokesman Scott Sutherland said, explaining that, despite the phone hookup that allows your box to exchange info with the company's home computer, very little data on your habits is shared typically. "We don't need to know who you are to make sure TiVo records 'Friends' for you."
That's some relief. But the potential for TiVo to know more and sell that info is obvious. A deal between TiVo and A.C. Nielsen, the firm that monitors overall TV viewership, was announced Wednesday that will have a group of TiVo users volunteering to have their viewing monitored for just that purpose.
So long as we stay out of that group, Sutherland says we shouldn't worry even though our TiVo box can notice which channels we zap past and on which channels we pause.
He says it should be of no concern the box can log which commercials we sit through, which ones we fast-forward over and which ones we rerun again and again because they're more entertaining than regular programming.
TiVo, he says, has no reason to pinpoint the exact moment at which we give up on Jay Leno's monologue and return to David Letterman or to Ted Koppel or to that late-night flick on Cinemax. Not yet anyway.
"I'm terrified every time I get on an airplane that it's going to fall out of the sky, but I know that it's much more reasonable to believe ... that plane is going to take off and land where it's supposed to go," Sutherland said. "I understand people have privacy concerns [about TiVo]. But when you look at the actual track record and the policy and procedures, that may not be altogether justifiable."
Of course privacy can be a two-way street. Say you're accused of a crime and you claim you were at home watching TiVo. Can the records at TiVo, if subpoenaed, provide the necessary info to back up your alibi?
"The bad news is no, they could not," Sutherland said. "The good news is [that information] is in your home. It's in your box. They're not going to have to get it from TiVo. They can take it out of your box, and find it themselves."
So when you have TiVo, you're never watching alone. You may be embarrassed now that TiVo noticed you ogling at Janet Jackson, but it also someday could keep you out of jail.
Lawyers will call it the TiVo Defense.