TiVo Compiles, Sells Users' Viewing Data

Digital video recorder maker TiVo hopes to make a buck out of its customers' viewing habits, by selling the data it collects to broadcasters and advertisers.

TiVo will sell second-by-second audience viewing data and a quarterly Commercial Viewing Report that will tell when TiVo users skip advertisements, the company has announced.

Information for the detailed analysis is derived from data collected when TiVo boxes make their daily call to retrieve programming information, the company said. The data is anonymous and is compiled to provide statistics about activity by many users, according to TiVo.

Varied Habits

Digital video recorders record programming onto a hard disk drive and allow users to pause live broadcasts, show instant replays, and easily skip commercials. To watch a broadcast commercial-free, TiVo subscribers often start watching a 60-minute show about 20 minutes after the broadcast starts, so they can skip commercials and catch up with the program's end in real time, according to the TiVo Web site.

The first TiVo Commercial Viewing Report shows that users tend to skip commercials in comedies and general drama programs but will watch ads in reality TV, news, and event programs. For example, 75 percent of TiVo users who watched the Grammy Awards continued watching through the commercials aired during the broadcast, while only 39 percent watched commercials during the comedy "Friends," according to TiVo.

TiVo's new play for revenue could become a privacy issue, but it is not yet because the data is anonymous, said Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group for civil liberties online.

"As long as data cannot be traced to a household or individual, the privacy implications are not that great," he said.

Tien, a TiVo customer himself, said he is "disappointed" that TiVo apparently needs to supplement its business with the selling of information on user habits. It could be a first step in the wrong direction, he said.

"It is not unusual for companies to begin adjusting their privacy policies and to turn to greater and greater exploitation of user records. I hope that does not happen to TiVo," Tien said.

Staying in Business

TiVo's decision is ironic, because the company came under fire from privacy advocates several years ago. The Privacy Foundation charged that TiVo's statistical studies of user habits could be traced to individual customers, who were not adequately warned of the capability.

Another developer of "smart" TV recording devices, Sonicblue, last year fought a court-imposed order for more specific surveillance of users of its ReplayTV system. In that case, a number of major broadcast studios wanted Sonicblue to monitor whether its users used the devices to break copyright law.

Sonicblue filed for bankruptcy in March and is selling off its ReplayTV division.

However, TiVo has found more success, and has laid out ambitious expansion plans. The company claims to have more than 700,000 subscribers, and projects the number will surpass 1 million by the end of the year.