DVR Data and Privacy

Now that there are countless households using DVRs to record their favorite TV shows it would be fairly easy to collect the meta-data and provide it to the companies that set add rates for TV advertisers. It seems it would be easier than setting up a Nielsen arrangement.

Is my DVR info being mined for ratings purposes or is it somehow considered private so that service providers can’t gather it legally?

Tivo certainly uses viewership data. Their privacy policy says (among other things): “We use Anonymous Viewing Information to develop reports and analyses about what programs, advertisements, and types of programming our users (as a whole or in subgroups) watch or skip, for other programming or advertising research, and for any other legitimate business purpose. For example, we use Anonymous Viewing Information to develop inferences that people who watch show X also watch show Y. We also use Anonymous Viewing Information to help with the investigation of technical issues with our systems.”

Thanks Dewey Finn. I use direct TV and I don’t remember seeing a disclaimer like Tivo uses, but perhaps I just ignored it at the time. :slight_smile:

You wouldn’t even need a DVR, just a cable box. The cable company knows whenever you change the channel.

For years, the Nielsen Company reported viewership numbers for shows at the original broadcast time, but recently, they also report “live plus seven” numbers, which include anyone who watches the program on a DVR within a week although I don’t know if this data comes from the DVR, people meter or paper logbooks.

The TV providers generally don’t record the data on a household-by-household basis, but they know how many homes in a particular ZIP code watched Game of Thrones last Sunday night, etc… This is assuming some kind of information is passed back from your house to your cable provider. Satellite TV needs a phone line or internet connection connected to your receiver to gather than information, and (I think) regular cable providers need you to have a set-top box (DVR box and/or HD receiver box) in order to be able to gather this info.

I would bet that in all cases were it’s possible to do this, it is *always *done. That it is in the service agreement of every content provider. Reason being that it’s too valuable and too easily gathered a commodity for any business not to exploit. They probably have to give you the option to opt-out, but only if you specifically say so, and the default setting is always opt-in to begin with.

A key aspect however is that the companies ***must ***keep the aggregate data separate from the customer info. IOW they must not associate names or account numbers with their viewing statistics.

I actually work for a major satellite provider, and you are correct on every point.

FTFY:
al27052 said
“The TV providers generally don’t record the data on a household-by-household basis, but they know how many homes in a particular ZIP code watched Game of Thrones last Sunday night, etc… This is assuming some kind of information is passed back from your house to your cable provider. Satellite TV needs a phone line or internet connection connected to your receiver to gather than information, and (I think) regular cable providers need you to have a set-top box (DVR box and/or HD receiver box) in order to be able to gather this info.”

If it’s disclosed in the fine print, why “must” companies ostensibly anonymize individual’s viewing habits? For that matter why do they even need to disclose it in the first place?

They didn’t at first. But then consumer watchdog groups got wind of it and raised hell. So various govt agencies made laws that forced companies to at least put it in the fine print, and allow any customer to opt out of it if they wished. IANAL but keeping a precise, detailed record of what channels a home watches and for how long etc. violates a consumer’s expected level of privacy (in my opinion). Besides, keeping the data separate from the names is win-win. The consumers get privacy, and the companies still get very useful information. They don’t link the info to actual names but a lot of it still has some anonymous demographics with it, i.e. number in household, ages, race, sex etc., and that’s all that they need. Adding actual names to it wouldn’t really increase its value to advertisers in terms of selling more sugar-water which, conspiracy theorists aside, is what all this data is used for and why it’s valuable.

Tivo can collect a surprising amount of data. An infamous example was the Janet Jackson Super Bowl “Wardrobe Malfunction” incident.

Tivo was tracking 20,000 viewers of the game and was able to report a huge spike in people watching and rewatching the incident.

The have the ability to monitor people to that level of detail.

Note, however, that a lot of time the TV is off or people are not even in the room so Tivo, cable companies, etc. might not be certain if the show currently tuned in is actually being watched.

You have to basically trust that they aren’t monitoring you as closely as they can and selling the data. And you can trust these companies, can’t you? And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.

Generally, when the $500,000/year guy tells the $50,000/yr guy “set it up so we can break the law”, there’s a good chance the low-paid guy will decide he’s better off not to do that - or to blow the whistle. It’s not like it’s cutting edge any more - the initial actions, the complaints about privacy, and the subsequent policies and laws are 5 to 10 years old - so nobody can say “what’s the big deal?” or that they did not know.

I think you overestimate the willingness of lackeys in major corporations to outright, blatantly break the law. After all, they know they’ll be the ones thrown under the bus when it all comes out.

I think, on the other side of the equation, too, that the the companies buying this data would be VERY afraid of a PR mess–at least the ones who aren’t just fly-by-night operations.

Imagine the GIANT public backlash if we found out Coca-Cola was buying your name and address from Dish Network or Directv, or Comcast, in addition to your TV viewing habits.

Brands and companies have reputations to protect.