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View Full Version : Is this true???


lee635
05-31-02, 05:29 PM
RE:
"From: Steve Fleckenstein (spfleck@citlinkdot.net)
Subject: TIVO is SPYWARE
Newsgroups: rec.video.satellite.dbs
Date: 2002-05-31 08:41:10 PST

Copied from the SpyWare Usenet Group
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Is anyone as furious as I am about the BBC, which decided it wanted to promote a new sitcom? So, without a by your leave, it targeted people who have bought TIVO video recorders. What it did was to dial up the machines without the owners knowing and automatically recorded onto them a "we thought you might like this" message, plus an episode of the show. A sort of video junk mail!

On top of that, apparently everything you decide to video on a TIVO is noted on a database at the broadcaster's end so they can "profile" you, possibly for future junk mail/video.

And we think we have problems with spyware freeware progs -- it doesn't compare!"

RichW
05-31-02, 06:05 PM
I have heard that one of the features being looked at for PVRs is a sort of artifical intelligence function (appropriate term for a TV device) which will learn viewing habits and record programs which the viewers might be intersted in based upon past recordings.

jrjcd
05-31-02, 10:14 PM
it steps over the line...i'd junk any piece of equipment that the manufacturer designed to do that and not tell me before purchase...