<p>On my way to work today, I heard a filler-type story of no great import but put out as an entertaining little tidbit: TiVo announced today the most replayed (via the TiVo Digital Video Recorder) moments of the Olympics. They listed the Gold Medal winner, the silver, and the bronze (1st, 2nd, and 3rd moments where people hit the replay button to see it again).</p>
<p>But it made me wonder. To gather those statistics, it means that the TiVo box sitting in your home is reporting back to the company with data about what you’re doing (with the DVR) and when. Very creepy, if you ask me. I wonder if the Bush administration has asked for a list of people who have recorded and replayed the latest tape broadcasts of bin Laden speaking. </p>
<p>This is news? I understand that TiVo attempts to predict which programs you’re going to want to see from your viewing patterns. Surely that was a clue that they were tracking your viewing patterns, right?</p>
<p>I heard this filler story… and I agree with you that I am not in favor of this type of captured data being made available…Sasha Cohen was the big winner of the replays…</p>
<p>I refuse to carry a grocery discount card – if you call corporate they are very apologetic and say you don’t <em>need</em> the card to get the discounts.</p>
<p>Relevant to the OP, I don’t remember where, but I read someone’s tongue-in-cheek description of his battle to try to “convince” his TiVo or VCR-Plus machine that he was not gay. Apparently, he had watched some TV show that had to do with fashion, cooking or gardening or some other show that stereotypically was associated with a gay audience. His machine kept suggesting similar programs as well as sitcoms with gay characters.</p>
<p>the thing about tivo that makes me laugh is it records these programs for me, but they are programs I don’t like, so I just delete them. so they can’t be getting it that right.</p>
<p>We don’t have a TiVo. The last thing I need is a machine that thinks it is smarter than I am. I thought that was what we had teenagers for . . .</p>
<p>Who watching me? Amazon knows what I read; Tivo knows what I watch, Bank of America knows how I spend my money, the grocery store knows what I eat, my pharmacist knows how my health is doing and what drugs I take, the state of Washington knows that I take Sudafed (I had to sign for it!), the federal government knows what stocks I bought and sold last year, the state government knows what kind of car I drive, the local government knows all about my house, and Google knows what I’m curious about.</p>
<p>Personally, unless the information is abused, which I have not seen any evidence of, the more that a company knows about the FundingFathers of the world, the better. If they know we all like certain TV shows, they will be more likely to put those shows on. If they know that a certain type of commercial actaully gets watched versus fast forwarded over, Madison Ave. will be more inclined to make commercials of that type. If they give me a summary of how I spent my money, that’s great - it means I don’t have to buy Quicken and enter that information myself. Since it is obvious that they have access to all of this information anyway, why not get some benefit from it?</p>
<p>Oh, BTW, unless you have a system like OnStar which has 2-way capability, a typical GPS system used for navigation does not report your location to anyone since there is no transmit capability.</p>
<p>Also, it is possible to turn off TIVO’s “suggested” program recording. It truly is a useless feature. The rest of Tivo, however, has become essential technolgy in my house. I think I’d rather give up my cell phone than Tivo.</p>
<p>here here. I love my tivo. it records all my son’s favorite shows while he’s at preschool, and my shows so I can play with my son, and watch them when he’s sleeping. truly a great invention</p>