Google to Track TV Viewers More Closely 123
GalacticNoob writes "According to this post, Google is about to launch a TV advertising program that will let advertisers target audiences based on demographics including their household income. A satellite TV company called Echostar is working with credit-reporting company Equifax to cross-reference shows watched with income and buying habits (based on using Equifax's data)."
Sign me up for the baller commercials (Score:5, Funny)
"Why yes Tina, that was a commercial for Ferrari, followed by a Tiffanys spot. What was that.., oh, your panties just semeed to have fallen to your shoes."
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LOL^99999 I hope you get moded funny through the roof. Right on!
Absolutely absurd (Score:1, Insightful)
A satellite TV company called Echostar is working with credit-reporting company Equifax to cross-reference shows watched with income and buying habits (based on using Equifax's data)
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I don't see why people view these things so harshly.
Think about it, now it means ads will actually hit their target audience
Would you rather see ads about things you have no care for, nor afford?
I, for one, welcome our Big Brother overlords.
Re:Absolutely absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, for one thing...what the hell is a credit reporting service doing SELLING my fucking info??
I mean....I really don't like the idea that the big three track that stuff, but, I can reluctantly live with it as a means to give a reasonable (usually) score of a credit risk when you need a loan, etc.
However, I think this information should be restricted to only that use, and it should be treated as pretty much privacy act level information, and nothing of it should ever be given out without the expressed consent of the individual in question.
I'm not one to usually ask for new restrictive laws, but, in this case, I wish we could mandate that a person's information is THEIRS....and cannot be bought, sold, traded or used in a fashion such as this. I mean, c'mon, why not just also combine it with info that the IRS and SS has on us too in the US? Aside from the difference in it being a commercial vs governmental affair...the privacy intrusion is analogous.
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I always prefer the "more power to the people" solution. Mandate that all boxes/televisions have an On/off switch. "On" allows Echostar, Dish, whoever to see what shows you watch and adjust the advertising accordingly. "Off" sends absolutely no information back to the companies. Let each person decided for him/herself how much they want to share.
In the 1980s, a popular TV program like The Cosby Show might have captured half the viewers in the entire United States; today's most popular shows, like American Idol, are lucky to capture a fourth of the whole audience.
Completely off. Even the Superbowl, the most-watched american program, only gets about 40% of the audience.
Popular shows like Cosby and Star Trek TNG were w
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As far as I can tell, the Dish receivers DO come with such a mechanism.
It would seem all one would have to do in order to "switch off" as you suggest in order to ensure that no information goes back to Dish...
is unplug the RJ-11 cable from the receiver so it cannot "phone home".
The receivers work just fine without the so called "required" phone connection. Dish even has ways for you to purchase movies without the phone connection.
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"I don't see why people view these things so harshly.
Think about it, now it means ads will actually hit their target audience
Would you rather see ads about things you have no care for, nor afford?"
Well, for one thing...what the hell is a credit reporting service doing SELLING my fucking info??
What's even worse is that they're using Equifax, which used to have unbelievably bad data-quality (at least when I worked at Fair Isaac(FI) -- and I can't imagine that they've changed). One of the surest ways to have your FICO score go wonky is to get garbage data from the agencies. Conceptually, the data about you is sent to FI, who in turn computes you FICO score and transmits it back. FI isn't allowed to merge/scrub/verify data from different sources, so it's pretty easy for inaccuracies to sneak in un
Re:Absolutely absurd (Score:4, Funny)
Would you rather see ads about things you have no care for, nor afford?
Yes. They're very easy to ignore that way.
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Ads which are right for someone economically may not be right for them in other ways. Take a couple who can easily afford to have several children and drive a big SUV - but imagine they are supporters of sustainable energy, zero population growth, and so on. They've already committed to having only one child, they want a fuel efficient vehicle, preferably a hybrid or better. They are not in the market for most of the things which are going to be targeted at them based solely on income.
How can
Dish (Score:5, Insightful)
Echostar is Dish Network.
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Re:Dish (Score:5, Informative)
Dish Network is the consumer branding. All the Dish techs up here have echostar.com email addresses. I don't need to read the wiki, I've worked for both Disk and DirecTV.
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Who you worked for doesn't bear on the facts. About a year ago Echostar broke up into Dish Network, which owns all of the service, advertising, and programming contracts and Echostar Technologies, which controls the satellites, manufactures the set tops, and controls the underlying technology.
I believe employees of both companies continue to use @echostar.com address.
We don't need you to accept this in order for it to be true.
-Peter
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I'm sorry. I'm a bit old school. If you use a domain for your business, then you are working for that company. Or the company that you worked for bought that (domain) company. In any real-world meaning, their is no Dish Network without Echostar. This is not even close to the break-up between DirecTV and Hughes where DTV isn't even selling Hughes sat internet (they are selling and installing BlueWave.)
-Joe
SBCA [scba.com]# 78097
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I'm sure the SEC and IRS will find your theory fascinating.
You may have just revolutionized business practices in America.
-Peter
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If I use an aol.com e-mail address for my business does that mean I work for AOL?
Re:Dish (Score:5, Informative)
Dish Network and EchoStar Corp. may be two legal entities, but they're one system. EchoStar builds the settop boxes, DVRs, and satellites. Dish Network rents the rights to use those satellites, puts programming on them, then sells EchoStar's hardware to consumers.
Nobody else but Dish uses EchoStar's products, and Dish uses only EchoStar products. They may have divorced but they're still close friends.
EchoStar was rumored to be deveoloping a non-Dish broadcast DVR product, but their recent losses in court to TiVo over patent violations threaten that product.
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Bell ExpressVU (now called BellTV) uses echostar products rebranded with a bell logo.....in fact if you check your LNB on a bell install it says echostar....the receivers and dishes are identical to their american counterparts
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just lawyers and marketing. Same shit different screen printing.
Do no evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Targeted advertising based on our credit history and income?
I'm pretty sure this counts as "evil".
Re:Do no evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that Equifax is no stranger to being fined for breaking the law, I'd say it actually counts as "Evil" with a capital "E".
Google needs competition. Their honeymoon period is over.
Re:Do no evil? (Score:5, Funny)
That's almost exactly what I was thinking.
Do no evil should probably include not getting all snug with a company that designs network topologies as inverted pentagrams for the summoning bonusus, I mean, 'customer data referencing enhancements'.
I mean, taking a look at Equifax's codebase, you'd expect to see calls to functions but CalltoCthulhu("fhtagn",DATABASEID) and PetitionMammon(CustID,MiracleType) are just plain uncalledfor.
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Is there any data on us these days that isnt open to be sold to the highest bidder. Its like open season info sharing on people.
"credit-reporting company Equifax to cross-reference shows watched with income and buying habits (based on using Equifax's data)."
So since when the hell is our credit card buying habits, open info to be sold to be highest bidder?! ... what next, I buy a book on politics and then that data gets bought by the government to workout my political point of views?
Maybe we need a wiki lea
Re:Do no evil? (Score:5, Informative)
Yep...it already does. Mostly by a company called Acxiom [acxiom.com] . They actually work very closely with Equifax and Transmeta...they have data on pretty much 99% of the people in the US, and are working hard to do the same around the world. Back when I worked there...a long time ago, we were working to come up with a unique identifier for every person in the US to track them for life. This helps to clean up other companies' databases, etc.
In recent years, since the Feds are still somewhat prohibited from gathering lots of data on people, they contacted and used Acxiom to do it for them.
They gather data from all sources...warranty cards, drivers license...USPO change of address data...etc. I'll bet no one ever would have guessed Big Brother was going to be located in Conway and Little Rock, AR, eh?
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we were working to come up with a unique identifier for every person in the US to track them for life.
wouldn't that be SSN?
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Actually...no, SS is not good to use as a primary key identifier. There are people out there without a SSN. There are people with more than one SSN (in previous years, you could for various reasons apply for a new SSN). Also, many years back, people sold wallets with fake credit cards and SSN cards in them, just to have a filler in them for display. People actually bought those and thought that was their SSN and used them for years. And today, with many illegals in the US, some of t
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So since when the hell is our credit card buying habits, open info to be sold to be highest bidder?!
Since those leeches first began acquiring and mining such data in order to insulate other companies from the normal costs and risks of doing business: for a fee. This is unadulterated pure bullshit ... but it's very much in line with what the Big Three have been doing since their inception. Advancing technology has simply offered them more opportunities to market that which does not belong to them.
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Do no evil should probably include not getting all snug with a company that designs network topologies as inverted pentagrams for the summoning bonusus, I mean, 'customer data referencing enhancements'.
People are often so taken by Google-rapture that they forget Google's income stream comes from advertising, and much of what it offers is designed to increase that revenue. This sort of "evil" should be expected and was entirely predictable.
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So you're saying that all companies that need to generate revenue are evil? That's pretty cynical.
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So you're saying that all companies that need to generate revenue are evil? That's pretty cynical.
You're generalizing my comment. I didn't call anyone or anything evil, I even put the word in quotes so you'd know I was using the term loosely. I was primarily commenting on the irrationality of people's surprise at Google's efforts here, given that they're an advertising company first, and search engine provider second. Google's out to make money selling ads, and this is just a logical extension of their existing business.
Whether that's evil is another matter. I wasn't addressing that.
Re:Do no evil? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but TFA states this will happen indirectly. They are not talking about looking up your credit history and deciding which ads to push to you, but rather one partnership is going to use the credit history to decide which shows people in different income brackets tend to watch, and it is this information is going to be used by google to decide upon which adverts go with which shows.
I am 100% certain that this 'income bracket to likely TV shows' correlation has been going on for years.
So, factor the rubbish out of the story, and basically they are saying, google has invented a new technology that makes it easier for lower turn over business to access TV advertising and they are going to use all existing available data to target this advertising in a way that makes it a relevant ad to the viewer, thus increasing advertising investment efficiency for the advertiser. In other words, exactly what they do on the web.
Google's justification for this will be exactly the same as their justification for their censored search results in China. The 'evil' will happen with or without them, but they believe that everyone is better off by having the service they provide. As somebody who accepts advertising as a necessary, an acceptable 'evil' to gain the benefit of media that is free at the point of delivery *and* somebody who uses google adsense I agree with them. Google has succeeded in making advertising less of a nuisance and I am happy for that.
Basically, the worst you can say about this is that google are complicit in the 'evils' of somebody else. That alone might be enough for some to condemn them, I mention it purely in the interests of clarity.
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Anybody who is concerned about whether Google is evil or not better not have a credit card or watch television anyway.
Re:Do no evil? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I get it. They're synergistically leveraging their core competencies to alleviate market deficits of cross-sectionalized yield-based advertisorial programming. Why didn't someone just say so?
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I know it is based off other info too..... just a joke.
Re:Do no evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertizing-based company undermines user privacy to make money. Film at 11.
Seriously... this is why I'm staying away from Chrome. If Google gets big enough in the browser to start dictating de-facto standards, my privacy will suffer.
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Why? As long as I'm warned that my data will be sold, why not have it available to the highest bidder?
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As long as I'm warned that my data will be sold, why not have it available to the highest bidder?
I like this idea. Instead of companies stealing our information why don't we just sell it directly. I think I'm going to contact these data collection agencies and start setting up contracts with them.
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Targeted advertising based on our credit history and income? I'm pretty sure this counts as "evil".
Firstly, finding something evil about advertising is like finding warmth on the surface of the sun. The word 'advertise' is based on the root 'adverse'. If advertising were a matter of merely directing willing consumers towards one of several viable options, it would be called 'divertising'. Literally speaking, 'advertising' is the craft of making people do the opposite of what they would otherwise do. 'Divertising' is just a fringe benefit.
That being said, I'm actually coming around to the idea of targ
Is it really? I don't think so. TARGET ME! (Score:2)
Which ads would you rather constantly be pounded with on TV - new products from Apple/Google/, niche technology gadgets, action sci-fi movies, comic-cons, science kits, etc - or Mr. Clean, adult diapers, Febreeze, ED tablets, and tampons?
TARGET AWAY GOOGLE! PLEASE TARGET ME FOR ADS!
I don't get why so many people are against targeted advertising. By definition, they already know the info about you, or else they would not be able to do said targeting. All it means is they are actually using the info to mak
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It would be nice to have a matrix of search engines matched with the types of information they collect. That would help me make a more informed decision of what engine to use.
For now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Desai stresses that all this data is made anonymous, so it certainly won't be possible to target specific households with ads...
... yet
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won't be possible to target specific households with ads...
Wait, I thought that was the whole idea of this system...
Scott Adams said... (Score:3, Insightful)
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I'm pretty sure that I'd be happy to punch anybody who smiled at me and tried to sell me a ring-tone directly in the face.
The thing to remember about Scott Adams is that he loves to troll his own blog.
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I'm pretty sure that I'd be happy to punch anybody who smiled at me and tried to sell me a ring-tone directly in the face.
Me too; a ring-tone directly in the face would be most inconvenient.
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It is easier than it sounds.
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Echostar is Dish Network but maybe the journalist didn't want people to associate the brand "Dish Network"
with what people could potentially perceive as evil. Most are not as sophisticated as you - and I'm not being
sarcastic towards you here -, they might just read the article, lean back and turn on their TV (powered by
Dish of course) and never make the connection nor would it occur to them to follow up and find out about
Echostar.
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If your ideas are correct, this "journalist" is not worth their salt. Intentionally misleading readers by using Echostar rather than Dish, so that it less recognizable is not very ethical.
/yes i know what echostar is
//and i work at a newspaper
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/yes i know what echostar is
Do you? Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says DISH is a legally distinct entity from Echostar. The relevant bit reads "The company was formerly part of EchoStar Communications Corporation before DISH Network was separated in December 2007." A Google News search [google.com] seems to support this. Even DISH Networks [dishnetwork.com] will tell you it is true. Plover pointed this out above, and I fact checked Wikipedia.
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You are correct in a really technical sense.
Isn't that the best kind of correct?
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That's like arguing that Taco Bell isn't owned by Pepsi.
Well yeah, exactly: it isn't. It's operated by Yum!(nee Tricon) since 1997. Tricon Global was a spinoff of PepsiCo, but Pepsi retains no control of it.
You are correct in a really technical sense. Echostar still owns the sats, sling and the box development, but Dish could not exist without them.
And McDonalds couldn't serve french fries without Golden State Foods. That doesn't make them the same company. Echostar and Dish are separate entities. The fact that they used to be one company a year ago is irrelevant.
if I see ONE commercial for a loan... (Score:2, Funny)
...or debt management, or car finance, or "cheaper insurance", I'm gonna fucking throttle someone.
Re:if I see ONE commercial for a loan... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I almost forgot - I think your car warranty has expired, but it is not too late to extent it! This is your 2nd notice!
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luckily my cell has a hold function. Three hours of the same Queen track should put anybody off... hey, it's their bill, not mine.
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I'm on pay as you go. I probably spend £20 a /year/ on calling credit. If that. I'm that introverted. I don't really care if people don't want to talk to me, but if they do it'd better be of earth-shattering import. That's what the cell is for.
Make it stop... *sob* (Score:2)
Oh, I almost forgot - I think your car warranty has expired, but it is not too late to extent it! This is your 2nd notice!
Were you snooping through my mailbox last week?
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Sounds like an idea for a new game show.
oblig futurama quote (Score:4, Funny)
LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century?
FRY: Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.
Re:Is this even legal? (Score:5, Informative)
there's nothing I can do about Echostar tracking that data
Yes there is. Don't plug your DVR into the phone line (or internet.) The dish is receive only. Dish and DirecTV will both say that you NEED a land line, and the installers take a hit if there is not one connected when the box is activated, but it is not needed to have the DVR work.
I installed DirecTV for 16 months. They just want your viewing data and impulse Pay-per-view hits.
Direct tv uses the internet for on demand and home (Score:2)
Direct tv uses the internet for on demand and home network video play back on your pc's.
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Only if you have the HD DVR.
Dish makes you pay $5 more per box that is not hoo (Score:2)
Dish makes you pay $5 more per box that is not hooked to a phone line or the internet.
Re:Dish makes you pay $5 more per box that is not (Score:1)
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Only dual tuner receivers like the 322,625,222,or 722, can save you money if they are plugged into a phone line. (HD VIP models can use internet).
They give you the second tuner (TV) for free. So you can get 4 tvs for only an extra $5 a month.
I work for a retailer for Dish and Directv (Big Dog Satellite)
here is the cite: http://www.dishnetwork.com/phoneline/ [dishnetwork.com]
"The monthly programming access fee for TV2 will be waived if your receiver is hooked to a phone line or high speed internet line"
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That is so cute that they now call it a "The monthly programming access fee" ... gotta have a name for it so you can't complain about it. Back in 2006 the operator I spoke to just called it a fee for not having the phone line plugged in so that I could order PPV without having to call or use the internet.
Calling it a "The monthly programming access fee" is especially entertaining since it isn't like it actually costs them anymore to share programming data. I strongly doubt there is a licensing fee for tha
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I agree with you. I have given them $40 of ppv because my 9 month old son LOVES to play with the remote. Well after that we put a block on, but if every customer who plugs in a phone line orders one movie they didn't want to, well Dish just made a few million.
If you go with Directv and get 4 tvs you have to pay $15 extra No matter what.
At least Dish saves you $10 a month. Which adds up fast.
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And see now I "get" charging extra at 4 TV's since I would imagine the licensing agreement they have with the networks means they are charged more per TV. Of course that assumes that all 4 TV's can actually be used at once, but still there is logic to that given how content is licensed.
Re:Dish makes you pay $5 more per box that is not (Score:4, Informative)
Here is your citation ... me. They charged me the first month I had it in 2006, I complained, they waived it for 3 months; I even got the woman to admit that yes, I was being charged $5 for the right NOT to be tracked and as a PENALTY for not being able to spend money on PPV. At the end of 3 months I complained, they did nothing, I was lazy, and even with the $5 it was the best deal I had given that cable was not available and DirectTV cost more. Then I moved and used their dish mover deal because cable cost WAY more and I wasn't in the mood to switch to DirectTV which was no cheaper anyway (I also don't like their DVD UI). Funny thing though, the nice man on the other end of the line when I set up the install at my new place removed the $5 completely and that was that.
So I wonder if they have stopped that fee? In the end I would never have hooked it up anyway but I also don't have a landline so it wasn't even an option ... never will either in all likelyhood.
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Re:Is this even legal? (Score:4, Funny)
I think I'm going to call Dish support and have a conversation about this.
Have fun.
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No, you gave them permission as a credit card customer.
Good and Bad TV Advertisements (Score:5, Interesting)
I know I'm not alone in this - lots of people are pretty quick with the mute button and it causes me to wonder.... Suppose you are an advertiser who pays for a really endearing ad that people love to watch. Maybe something like the slightly bewildered A&W proprietor they've been airing lately. So you go to the expense of creating ads that follow a story line and that are successful, if the audience sees and hears them.
Now imagine what happens if your ad follows one of those obnoxious ads people immediately mute. I suppose the only solution is to make sure your ad is always in the first slot - but that could get expensive.
Re:Good and Bad TV Advertisements (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think this was thought through so well. Imagine if your household is made from more than one surname, meaning that credit and buying history will be different, perhaps vastly different. Woe be unto the poor sod that lives with his wife and 3 18+ daughters. The only thing he's going to see is tampax and menopause commercials and of course, every other pill advertisement with QVC and Oprah ads smashed in between them.
God help the person whose dogs were just killed in a freak pesticide accident who now gets pet grooming/product commercials 24/7 to remind them of their now dead pets. Or maybe the guy who borrows from his 401k to pay for the burial of his wife and then starts getting ads for retirement planning.
If Google wants to do no evil, they better work pretty fucking hard to make sure all those poorly placed ads on websites don't start showing up on television and phone messages. I'm certain that there are serial killers who had less reason to do their killing than what these people are capable of stirring in the souls of the unwashed masses.
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Statistical outliers are not relevant to advertisers.
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Shit, that must be a real chore to keep up with.
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One word response to such tactics: (Score:2)
Tivo.
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Who has been collecting every remote keystroke (and what action that key reprents) since the beginning of the product, and will gladly sell samples of that data to advertisers and TV networks. They just launched an settop-box-to-Domino's-Pizza interface.
No thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Commercials is one reason i tend to avoid TV. ( that and most content is dismal ).
None of their business who i am really.
Most content is dismal. (Score:1)
I guess you tend to avoid books as well (since most content is dismal).
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Modern books, yes i do avoid most of them for that reason.
Havent bought a magazine since the late 80's.
Google does not evil... (Score:2)
for their definition of "evil".
Stop trying to target me! (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, maybe if companies would spend less time trying to figure out how to target me with ads for stuff I find lacking and actually, oh I dunno, make products I actually want to buy, then maybe I would. And they wouldn't need to waste their ad dollars.
TV? Whats that? (Score:4, Insightful)
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You sir are a leech on society and I will certainly shun you and your kind.
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I, like the GP, also do not own a TV. I DO own a USB TV tuner, but I haven't connected it since I bought it (which I actually did to prove to a friend he didn't need to buy the expensive "Mac" version - the "Windows" version works fine on my Mac).
I actually find the Onion article linked to be quite thought provoking... certainly, the fictional guy they're describing is a complete arse for always going out of his way to mention that he doesn't watch TV, but somehow I still sympathise with the guy anyway. I
Do no evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Proles (Score:1)
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They can only tell... (Score:2)
what chaell your decoder is set to, not whether you are actually there watching it.
If you are one of their customers you should make sure that when you are out, or sleeping, or trolling slasdot, it is set to some random channel to confuse them.
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Good idea - then some random show will get advertising dollars and the shows that you actually like, won't get and advertising dollars and they'll be canceled.
That'll teach those bastards!
Good luck on this one (Score:1)
While Dish seems to be able to keep there programming working (programs show up on my screen ) They can't make web sites so save their souls.
Maybe this reflects the split between Echostar and Dish. Their site has gotten better but is still a flash laced hodge podge. At least the links now lead to something and it may work.
Cool! (Score:1)
Oh, good! More info and help for the advertisers! Thanks, Google, you fucking sacks of pig shit. I hope your sex party plane crashes into a fucking mountain, you fucking, shit sucking tools, and you survive the crash, crippled and in pain for days before a fucking bear slowly eats you feet first.