 A leading privacy advocate is criticizing
TiVo, a maker of personal video recorders, for not clearly disclosing how
much information it collects about users and their television viewing habits.
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- In an advisory scheduled to be released today, the Denver-based
Privacy Foundation details how TiVo recorders in users' homes are set up
to automatically transmit streams of data to the company's Alviso headquarters
each night, including extensive viewing information. This is in contrast
to statements in the owner's manual for the TV recorder, which asserts
that ``unlike the Internet, all of your personal viewing information remains
on your PTV receiver in your home.''
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- Matthew Zinn, Tivo's chief privacy officer, said that
phrase has since been removed from the manual and that data collection
policies have also been modified. Zinn said the changes were not made in
response to the Privacy Foundation. ``From day one, privacy has been a
huge initiative for TiVo,'' he said.
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- Part of TiVo's appeal is its ability to learn what shows
a user likes to watch and automatically record similar programs. So viewers
expect some tracking of their program preferences.
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- ``The issue here is a lack of candor on their part,''
said Richard Smith, the privacy group's chief technology officer.
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- Though TiVo's recorder has been enthusiastically reviewed
for its ability to allow viewers to control their televisions, there is
growing concern that such interactive digital devices will be used by businesses
to spy on consumers.
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- ``If I'm a consumer and I look at this thing, I think
this is just a fancy VCR, and my VCR doesn't report back what video tapes
I rent. This thing does,'' Smith said. As one of the first companies to
introduce a home-entertainment product that communicates with external
computer networks, Smith said TiVo had an obligation to be straightforward
about its practices.
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- Using digital technology, TiVo makes it much easier for
viewers to record shows by name, rather than programming in a time and
channel. It also lets them pause a live TV show and rewind it, or record
an entire season at the push of a button.
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- TiVo says that it regularly transmits viewing information,
but that information is purposefully separated from personal details about
the viewer.
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- ``We could have set up a system where we could track
everything, but we've set up our whole system to prevent us from doing
that,'' Zinn said.
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- Contact Elise Ackerman at eackerman@sjmercury.com _____
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- Privacy Organization Hits Recorder Maker
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- By Janet Kornblum
USATODAY.com http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-03-26-ebrief.htm
3-26-1
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- The non-profit Privacy Foundation is accusing TiVo, which
makes a "personal video recorder" that pauses live TV and saves
favorite shows to a hard disk, of having the ability to collect data on
viewers' individual habits and track them in a central database.
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- Jim Barton, TiVo's chief technology officer, says that
linking data to individuals would be possible by altering its software.
But, he says, "we have gone to great lengths to make sure it could
never be traced back to its source."
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- Richard Smith of the University of Denver-based Privacy
Foundation points to TiVo as "one of the first pieces of consumer
electronics that 'phones home' and can provide identifiable data, (yet)
gives the impression in the manuals that they are not collecting information
on the shows you are watching."
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- Manuals printed before last fall said no data were collected
but noted that the policy could change. It directed subscribers - who pay
upwards of $200 for the hardware and $10 a month for a subscription - to
TiVo's Web site to read the entire privacy policy. Newer manuals include
the complete policy, which spells out more clearly what's collected.
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- Why gather information at all? Barton explains that TiVo
had hoped to profit from selling aggregate, anonymous data to advertisers
and broadcasters.
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- "We take what (the Privacy Foundation says) to heart,"
says TiVo chief privacy officer Matt Zinn. "We recognize a few areas
of semantics (and) we intend to act." TiVo also permits its users,
currently numbering about 150,000, to opt out of all collection by calling
877-367-8486.
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- TiVo has alliances with major media and technology companies,
including Philips, Sony, General Electric/NBC, DirecTV and AOL Time Warner.
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- Mir fragment mere figment of imagination
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- Pssst. Hey buddy, want to buy a piece of Mir? If you
do, eBay's the wrong place for you. Within hours of the Russian space station
Mir crashing to Earth, entrepreneurs claiming ownership of the debris put
the items up on eBay. "We looked at them and came to the pretty fast
conclusion that they were probably pranks - and that the bids going with
them were probably pranks," says eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove.
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- And in more eBay hijinks, police have arrested a cleaning
lady who allegedly cleaned out her customers' houses and fenced the goods
on eBay, reports the St. Petersburg Times. Clients of Kaye G. Gorman began
checking for missing items on eBay, where they knew Gorman sold items,
the report states. Investigators made the winning bid for a camera from
Gorman - and found the victim's pictures still in it.
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- Contributing: M.J. Zuckerman E-mail Janet Kornblum at
jkornblum@usatoday.com.
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