TVSquad

TiVo sells advertisers your private info (if you opt-in)

Posted Nov 8th 2007 10:01AM by Brad Linder
Filed under: PVR Wire, TiVo

It's no secret TiVo has been selling user data to advertisers for a while now. The concept is pretty simple: if you're upset people are using TiVo to skip some commercials, why don't you take advantage of this rich anonymous user data we're collecting about how people watch TV to make more effective commercials?

But now TiVo is removing the "anonymous" from that sentence. Well, sort of. TiVo reports that 20,000 volunteers have opted into a new Power Watch program that lets advertiser have access to their age, income, marital status, ethnicity, and other demographic data, but not their names. TiVo users who opt-in get entered into a content to win a free TiVo. Of course, they already need to have a TiVo in order to qualify, but who couldn't use a second box in the bedroom?

[via Gizmodo]

Tags: advertising, ratings, research, TiVo

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