Yow! TiVo got two stories on the front page of the Marketplace section in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Neither of them were exactly favorable, although they did spell “TiVo” correctly 🙂
The first, by Nick Wingfield and Jennifer Saranow, points out that (gasp) TiVo gathers viewing data. There’s a quote from Richard Smith (summary: TiVo is saying “you have to trust us”, duh), and a counterbalancing quote from TiVo’s chief privacy officer. The article points out that the satellite- and cable-based PVRs are capable of gathering this data, even though none of them currently do, and the closing paragraph summarizes my feelings exactly:
Some users, such as Jayne Spiegelman, 48 years old, say they’re willing to put up with some monitoring because of the benefits they get out of the technology. “If it starts invading my privacy,” the Atherton, Calif., technology executive says, “yeah I’ll have a problem with it. But right now, I’m so infatuated with the TiVo service itself.”
The other column is by Lee Gomes. Most longtime Mac users well remember his numerous (and wrong) “Apple is dying” columns from the early-to-late 90s, and this is pretty much in the same vein; he dismisses the filing as “somewhat cheeky” and doesn’t present any real technical detail on the merits of TiVo’s claim– understandably, I guess, since the suit is still in its early stages. The patents are interesting reading, though.
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