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Television Media

Targeted Advertising Using Digital Set-Top Boxes 152

Posted by timothy from the every-home-a-target dept.
Moonshine writes: "Interesting story at TVTechnology regarding targeted advertising using new techology. Seems like all set-top boxes have a unique ID and they can send a code to any given one to change the channel for the period of the targeted ad and the viewer is none the wiser. What about privacy...well: Invidi says its system is designed to assure privacy. 'The system never knows what the viewer is watching since the headend never knows specifics about what the set-top box is doing,' said Anderson. 'And we never associate the set-top box address with a physical home address.'"
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Targeted Advertising Using Digital Set-Top Boxes More

Targeted Advertising Using Digital Set-Top Boxes

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  • I can see it now: one evening I'm watching Law & Order. Suddenly, I'm watching the Spice channel.

    Of course, that's the moment when my g/f walks in the room...
  • Motorola's gonna be rolling out their next-gen STB soon, I have a good feeling that it will overwhelm Invidi in the OEM STB market regardless of whatever features Invidi wants to include.

    Inertia and reputation, it will take you far in business.

  • It's not changing channels (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quistas ( 137309 ) <robomilhous@hotmail.com> on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @04:38AM (#4226334)
    It's inserting ads into the streams. I can't believe a submitter didn't read the article, but...

    They do this now, to some extent. Program feeds have spots in them which are filled by local broadcast affiliates/your cable company, so the ads are targeted for market. For instance, if I'm watching a baseball game, during the break my cable company gets to toss an ad in that break that they've sold themselves (this is the 'cablehead' they're talking about in the article), for a restaurant within the boundaries of the cable system's reach.

    As to privacy, they're pretty much lying, or at the very least being intentionally oblivious. They're talking about knowing if you've just bought a car, or your lease is up -- they intend us to believe that it's okay to correlate that much personal data on me for purposes of serving me a targeted car ad, as long as they aren't able to deliver a sample pizza after a Domino's ad?

    -- q
    • To quote from the article:

      Essentially these ads are inserted via a channel change without the viewer realizing it.

      • "Essentially these ads are inserted via a channel change without the viewer realizing it."

        Right, so that's only the same as a banner-server on any typical websites? It knows which ads you watch, and which annoy you so much as to make you switch channel.

        I can't watch advertising-supported television at all, but if I did, it would be an awful lot easier if there was some evolution of adverts shown. There are only so many times you can watch womens' hygiene adverts before you sell the TV and buy a video-player instead.

        So they have the space (channel | image area), the ID-tag (set-top-box number | cookie), and they need to decide what to show (advert | banner). Well, you can only show one advert per channel, so if you want to substitute different adverts, you need another channel.

        So now you're left with (assume two channels):
        Program 1: Channel 1
        Program 2: Channel 2
        Adverts for leg-shavers: Channel 1
        Adverts for fast cars: Channel 2

        With the advertising-breaks synchronised, you can mix the 4 combinations for different users.

        Of course, the privacy claims is a big stinking pile of lies, but I'd be interested to see the cable companies prove they're not cheating by having the set-top-boxes choose a random ID tag when they're installed.

      • This is not a "channel change" in the way you are interpreting it. In the digital video stream vernacular, a channel change can also refer simply to the act of changing the program stream (in this case for insertion of material) in a (hopefully) seamless maner.

        Smooth channel changes is one of the early problems that digital video decoder and set-top box manufacturers wrestled with (some still do). Changing smoothly from one stream to another without a macroblock storm visible to the viewer still is one of the key requirements for such systems.

        This capability is important not only for truly changing channels under user control, but also for insertion of local program material at the cablehead. The term "channel change" is used for both scenarios since the operations required of the set-top box are the same in either case.
    • Sky TV already do something like this. A viewer in Ireland watching the same channel will get a different add to someone in england.
    • Not only that, but some channels are starting to use pop-up ads that contain subliminal messages. [uncoveror.com] Kind of scary, huh?
    • Yeah, Charter Digital Cable streams advertisements on the channel guide and the channel information bar. The two adds they place on the left hand side of the screen makes it difficult to read the channel guide. There's about 45% of the screen left to display program titles and of course they're all truncated. Every time I change the channel the information bar pops up at the top of the screen. There's an advertisement box on the left hand side that also truncates the program information.

      It's slow, hard to navigate and there's no way to customize any of the menu settings. Their service reminds me of pop-up advertisements that won't go away.

      I feel that there should be no additional charge for digital cable if they are going to shove advertisements down my throat every time I change the channel. I'll be switching back to satellite when my trial movie package expires.
      • I feel that there should be no additional charge for digital cable if they are going to shove advertisements down my throat every time I change the channel. I'll be switching back to satellite when my trial movie package expires.

        Sounds like you need a TiVo [tivo.com]. The guide that Cox uses with its digital-cable boxes isn't ad-infested, but navigation through it is still sluggish and show titles are often abbreviated to something that doesn't always make sense. The guide information that TiVo provides is more complete and can be browsed more rapidly.

    • As to privacy, they're pretty much lying, or at the very least being intentionally oblivious.


      I think, IMHO, you had it right on the first one..they're flat out lying. The question is to whom, the residents or the ad agencies. They say on the one hand that they never match a box with a individual user/address and on the other that they can send a car ad or not based on whether one just purchased a new car or is near the end of the lease on a car. That means they ARE matching specific users and addresses, period... if they have that capability. They mention census data, but census data is NOT that detailed and explicit.


      The real question is whether or not cable companies are even going to be interested. Since it indicates the box can request from multiple commercials (remember nothing is sent to the head end, the box is making all the decisions?) and that commercials, depending on what channel someone is viewing, don't run at the same exact point on all channels.. just what cable company is going to be willing to give up the bandwith necessary for such as massive undertaking. Is a cable company going to be willing to give up that much bandwith? If not, it seems the box is going to have to actually stage the commercials in the set top box, meaning it has to do the insertion... what is the cost of that box now (especially with the deployment of high def)?? Passing that cost on won't fly... and won't make a difference. Aren't set top boxes to be 'standardized' allowing the user to purchase their own at some point? That seems to deflate the captive situation a cable company would have. IMHO, I think I'd be watching to see if this company is going for financing or an IPO shortly... something just seems adrift.

    • I'm not going to go into detail, because I am actually working on this technology and under nondisclosure, but Invidi HAS figured out how to target advertizing without passing data that invades privacy. This is a very clever approach, and when they say they are protecting the viewer's privacy, THEY MEAN IT. - tobias robison

  • P.O. Television. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Perdo ( 151843 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @04:42AM (#4226346) Homepage Journal
    "All the information from the 2000 census is available for free from the United States government," Anderson said. "No one is out in front of their mailbox with a shotgun to prevent direct marketers from distributing targeted print advertising. Yet with television, there is a greater level of concern."

    I use A P.O. Box.

    Are they somehow going to give me the anonymity of P.O. television?

    No.

    They will use every means at their disposal to generate income once their "???" doesn't become "Profit!". And that means they are going to sell me out.

    My mail does not come to where I live.
    My Television does.

    • What difference does it make whether you're getting snail mail spam in your PO Box or your home address? You're still getting advertising. You do have the option of not watching TV but we don't seem to have the option of not receiving US Postal Mail.. at least Kramer didn't.
      • The difference is that junk snailmail is a one-way process. They buy mailing lists based on your marketing profile and send you junk. They have to way to measure your response unless you actually call back to buy their junk.

        OTOH people's viewing habits collected through digital cable is a treasure trove of raw marketing data as evidenced by this article quote:

        "A profiling engine running in the set-top box determines which ads are played in a particular household. The box is given an initial profile and it then gathers information based on the household's television viewing habits. Anderson emphasized that this information never leaves the set-top box."
    • That's a false statement, at least the way it's presented here.

      The aggregate census data is available - that's things like the median family size, ages and income within some small area. (by ZIP code?) It gives you a good feel for the neighborhood, but tells you nothing about the individuals.

      The personal data isn't released for something like 70 years, so the details of the 2000 census won't be available until 2070. That's the release that would worry people, but in 70 years most of us will be dead.
      • It gives you a good feel for the neighborhood, but tells you nothing about the individuals.

        Just as it should be. My government doesn't need to know those details (unless it wants to become a police state).

        When the Census2000 guy came to my apartment he repeatedly tried to get me to give up more personal info than necessary. I just told him "two people live here - that's all you need to know, and that's all you're legally allowed to extract from me."

        --

  • I really don't understand why would they think forcing an add to someone could help make them use it. Popups in the internet proved to fail, people don't look at them, they close them, or at least find ways to disallow them from poping up. The best way of advertising is making it viewable and tolerable. Something that doesn't stop you from doing your job. I can see an advertisement in this website for instance, because I didn't pay money, I've nothing against it, but still, it never stopped me from reading what I want to read.

    If this fasion of advertisements infects PC's, then people will just find ways to get rid of it, ok, this is usually how I go around normal advertisements in TV. When the program I'm watching stops a while for an ad, all I'd do is go do something I had to do at the time, so I use it as a timeout, without changing the channel, which they want to avoid.

    Some commercial people related to the TV stations business said they do consider changing the channel when the advertisement time comes "stealing". This is nonesense, it is totally normal for any of us to do whatever we want whenever we want, the only thing they can require us is to pay money to remove the ads, or keep the ads and use hte service for free. Not force me to click on the link (in the internet), or to watch the ad in TV.

    In addition to this, I think that will be regardless of what the person is watching. Well, I won't ever like to use a service where they suddenly stop me from watching the TV program I'm listenning to, and thus lose the content that the TV channel sends me while I'm supposed to be watching the ad.

    This doesn't fit, when it fails in the internet, they should look for a better way in TV, not repeat the same mistake ..

    Thanks for reading ...

  • If they don't get info from the set top box... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Romancer ( 19668 ) <romancer AT deathsdoor DOT com> on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @04:45AM (#4226358) Journal
    If they don't get info from the set top box...
    Info like what the user is watching and what they like etc...
    Then how do they target the ads effectivly?
    • The simple answer, according to the article is that the local engine running on the box will decide which set of ads to grab from the server based on a local profile. IE box no 0001 wants ads for widgets because that box knows the TV is tuned to "Widget World" every week. Box knows, Big Brother dosen't... however there is an inconsistancy in the article.
      ------ From the article --------

      "If you've just bought a car, you might see an ad that reinforces your decision and that ad might reference the vehicle's warranty or anti-lock breaking system," explained Downey. "On the other hand, if a viewer is in the 34th month of a 36-month lease, they will see ads that will highlight favorable interest rates and rebate programs."
      --------------- End ----------

      How could the box know you bought a car or your lease is up unless another system is in place that is collecting that information and passing it to the box to let it know. Box is "safe" but the other system that lets the box know... well just idle thoughts on this...
      • How could the box know you bought a car or your lease is up

        Now thats the bit they dont want to tell you. In actual fact the STB gets up late at night when you're asleep and goes through your financial documents and receipts looking for spending habits!

        In all seriousness, one wonders how long before this kind of thing enables someone like Motorola to have their STB 'divert' during a Nokia mobile phone add to one of Motorola's own offerings?
    • If you read the article closer you would see that apparantly what they do is they send a bunch of ads to your set top box and it's your box that chooses what to show. But how my set top box will know that I just bought a car is a different story!
    • Are you asking how commercial tv has managed to survive 50 years without the ability to spy on their viewers?

      My cable company needs to know that i subscribe to Speedvision so that they can provide it to me and bill me for it. Those are the only legitimate uses for that bit of info. They have no legit reason to track the time of day i watch it. I, for one, will go back to rabbit ears the day they try to do it to me.

      We have the right to privacy in our homes. True Americans are willing to fight to protect their rights.
    • I'm not going to go into detail, because I am actually working on this technology and under nondisclosure, but Invidi HAS figured out how to target advertizing without passing data that invades privacy. You will find their techniques interesting when they become generally known. They have a clever approach, and when they say they are protecting the viewer's privacy, THEY MEAN IT. And they nonetheless can target ads. - tobias robison
  • Since it doesn't know what I am watching, and we can safely assume that not all channels have synched adds, this puppy should be able to interrupt my viewing to an add that suits me best. Oooo yeah.
    Why don't they invent a direct retinal projection system that just beams adds to one eye and the show to the other. And to stop those free loading ppl with one eye only, they'd get just the adds.

    • Re:Just what I always wanted!!! (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm not trying to flame anyone, but please...the word is "Ad" rather than "Add".

      It is short for "Advertisement" and not "Addvertisement". Also, for a previous poster, adding an "ing" to "pop" should not result in "poping" (which sounds like something John Paul II does) but rather "popping".
  • I've noticed over the last few months that I have started going days at a time without turning on a TV, even though I pay for Dish Network. I've considered just canceling the whole thing, and renting/buying DVDs when I want to watch a movie. This "targeted advertising" crap may be just what I need to convince me to quit watching TV.

    • I haven't had cable or a dish in my house (we get one broadcast channel - CBS) up till now. I could get either, but I haven't.

      This summer we're renovating our house and the place we're staying during that has cable. There are some cool things (monster garage, for instance), but when we move back, I'm not going to get it.

      Rentals work fine for movies.
    • But the problem with this is that some of my favorite shows (Farscape, SG1, WitchBlade) could take years to get the [currently] new episodes onto DVD and onto store shelves. I'm not willing to wait a few years to find out if Crighton comes out of a wormhole in an alternate reality. . . but I guess that's my fault for watching the show in the first place huh? ... hmm... and I guess there's always Kazaa...
      • Believe it or not, you picked a perfect example. Farscape is one of the few shows I enjoy. But since the Sci-Fi channel, in their infinite stupidity, have decided to cancel the series I guess that doesn't matter so much.
  • The WWW was supposed to allow "targetted" adverts and failed to deliver. Either that or I'm a prime target for dubious loans from a bank I've never heard of on a different continent...

    Targetting ads is about as much a science as basing government policy on "focus" groups.

  • These targetting ads work! (Score:5, Funny)

    by clickety6 ( 141178 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @05:11AM (#4226412)
    I can't tell you what I was watching last night, but during the break I was sent the adverts for the following products:

    1. Wonderbra
    2. KY Jelly
    3. Bacofoil
    4. Kleenex Man-sized tissues
    5. Chicken Tonight

    • If this new system were in place, we'd be able to guess as to what you were watching based on the ads you received.

      Hmm, wonderbra and ky jelly... that'd be either pron or Sex in the City. Or is there a difference?

      I forsee embarrasing situations where someone invites his buddies over for the ballgame, and they tease him about the ads for women's clothing which appear because of his watching history.

      And just think of the government investigations which will occur... "Senator, according to records from the Overseeing Cable Company, you watched 36 straight hours of television which involved sex outside of marriage, and frequently chose to watch programming which promoted destruction of wildlife reserves. What is your response to these charges?"

  • I realize that those people keep trying new idea after new idea in order to have their business model survive, but their choice of a "target" is wrong IMHO.

    Right now an ad "target" is roughly defined as an (age, sex, income) tuple. Makes the job of ad creators easier, and may even help product targetting, I wouldn't know... But what I think is that people are bored of watching commercials that, even if specifically 'targetted' to suit them, also match a good part of the remaining population. To sum up, i'll say their targetting is "just too loose".

    Consider this alternative. A few days ago a new TV program popped up here, and *gosh* they advertise books and movies to make some money. What's new (new here, YMMV) is that it's a comic show, and you can't tell the ads from the show... Once in a while they'll just make a joke about a book or a movie, instead of politics or GWB.

    And that works ! I really despise commercials and you won't find me in front of the screen as soon as one begins, but I found out that I like to be entertained with nice humor, being it about an advertised book or not. In short, for the first time I have the feeling that I have been "properly" targetted :)

    If only companies would investigate alternate ways of targetting audience, both their business model and our existences would get better.... I think.

  • Constantly I keep on getting spam mails from a company who claims to offer targetted advertising. The blurb on their site tells me how they always get it right, and it is the best way to advertise. So what do I keep on getting adverts for?

    Penis Enlargement

    I got one the other day telling me that my girlfriend thought my willy was small... otherwise they are really making sure I get the right adverts and my girlfriend is just being nice, or they are talking complete shit.

    • It's when you get "targetted" advertisements for penis enlargements and breast enlargements in the same mail download you start wondering about things...
    • I got one the other day telling me that my girlfriend thought my willy was small... otherwise they are really making sure I get the right adverts and my girlfriend is just being nice, or they are talking complete shit.

      Ah, if you don't know the answer to that one, then it's probably the former.
  • "A profiling engine running in the set-top box determines which ads are played in a particular household. The box is given an initial profile and it then gathers information based on the household's television viewing habits. Anderson emphasized that this information never leaves the set-top box."

    I believe that my profiling engine will mysteriously report that I am only interested in free chips and cola.

  • story sounds like something out of wired magazine (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StandardDeviant ( 122674 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @05:25AM (#4226445) Homepage Journal

    Consumers to Adopt HyperMedia Content Via Broadband-Capable Digital Set-Top Boxes
    WiReD HyperMediaDigitalConvergenceSetTopShinyBitz Correspondent N. O. Klue

    Disney studios released today the first version of their newly enhanced HyperMedia set-top box with broadband download capabilities and integrated "minimally invasive" Digital Rights Management and custom advertisement software. Estimated street prices was your firstborn child or your freedom to think for yourself. The newest boy band (as of 12:53pm PST), Sen. Hollings and The Brown-nosers, was on hand for the release.

    EFF spokesman quoted as saying "Yeah, it's really shiny. I wonder what the privacy concerns are? Down with the man!" A wild-eyed and very smelly hobo we pulled from the dumpster outside our offices here in SanFran was quoted as saying "As a content developer I love the potential for rich user experiences conveyed in a simple manner by a plug-and-play set top box that enables the Middle America idiots to finally see what all this HyperMedia business is about. Of course, then we're going to get requests for the 5am farm report in HyperMedia format." The hobo then threw up on our shoes, as reproduced in the sidebar graphic in stunning print-based, laptop-oriented paper HyperMedia graphics.

    We managed to track down an entertainment industry executive to get an industry insider's viewpoint, at San Quentin State Penitentiary. He was quoted as saying that "...[T]his product will enable a new future of one-to-one digital HyperMedia advertising. My ass hurts." The executive then got into a knife fight over whose bitch he was and died.

    ---------------

    Sorry, that's just the reaction I have whenever somebody starts going off about rich media and set top boxes. Please mentally read this post as if it were in silver text on an orange background with high-gloss paper.

    People that want rich content or digital convergence (maybe one person in a thousand) have computers. The vast majority of the public really has no interest in anything more complex than what is already on TV (the new opiate for the masses). This is why products that are aimed at the niche inbetween full computer users and Joe Sixpack always fail, the market for people that are interested but not computer customers is just too small. So nix selling this thing as an add on. Is the value of the marketing feature enough to offset the cost of just giving away the STBs? Becuase for 99+% of television viewers, the analog broadcasts they use for the news and sports and their soap operas is enough, leaving them with essentially zero incentive to switch.

    I mean really, interactive TV, video on demand, digital set-top boxes. All of these are a festering mass of hype, void of any real utility or success in the marketplace. This has been pretty evident since the early-to-mid 90s. When are we going to learn?

    • Just a few rebuttals of your statements:

      First of all, many people have computers. I don't know numbers for sure, but the prevalence of websites in advertising suggests, for example, that the advertisers believe that most people who would buy there products have computers. Based on Nielson's NetRatings [netratings.com] between a third and a half of the population of the US uses the internet. The number of computer users is higher, certainly much higher than 1 in a thousand.

      Secondly, many cable companies are aggressively promoting digital cable. Primarily, customers adopt it for better onscreen guides of what is playing, and for more channels. Digital cable gives you 6 HBO channels, rather than just 1. Same for all of the other premium channels. Plus there are lots of random channels only avaible digitally. Both RCN and Comcast (the two cable companies I've had cable from) aggressively promote digital cable and seem to be doing pretty well with it. I'd hardly call that failure in the marketplace.

      And the digital cable functions talked about in the article provide value to the cable companies, not to the viewer. The cable companies then have motivation to upgrade the current settop boxes to support this. Given that all of the digital settop boxes are leased these days, that isn't that hard. They can just show up and replace it if they want. Or offer some new features on the new box and ask people to come to the cable office and switch. A lot of people would if it didn't cost any more.

      Finally, Comcast in Philadelphia is planning on rolling out a video-on-demand feature like Pay-Per-View, but with a 24 hour lease and pause, rewind, and fast forward. For 3.99 a movie, if they have the movie I want to watch, why not just watch it rather than go to the video store? It's failed in the past, but Pay-Per-View works well enough, and even if they just implemented pay-per-view with pause/rewind/fastforward and a 24 hour lease (same selection of movies) I'd watch pay-per-view for many new releases (assuming it was the same price as Blockbuster).

      Mike Sackton
  • Warning: Rant

    Sheesh.

    I wish companies would stop proclaiming that every new combination of database query and associated effect is a "New Technology". It's probably half the reason the US patent system is in such a mess.

    This development in television advertising was obvious and inevitable YEARS ago, and I really do mean YEARS. As soon as there was sufficient bandwidth to carry multiple advertising streams (like there is now) it is a trivial matter to implement a bit of software here and a bit of software there to display different advertising streams to different viewers based on some (probably simple) profiling mechanism.

    "New Technology" my pointy haired ass.
  • The article says "No one is out in front of their mailbox with a shotgun to prevent direct marketers from distributing targeted print advertising."

    That may be true, however with physical, direct-mail ads, the "viewer" has an extreme amount of control as to what he chooses to read, and what he chooses to throw away. He can look at something and say "crap, not interested", tear it up, and toss it in the trash. With television ads, however, all of them are thrown at the viewer on equal footing, and the viewer has to waste the time on them whether she or he watches them or not. (You can turn the TV off, but your show won't come on any sooner.)

    This, of course, isn't true with recorded shows, but that's not what this is about. (Plus, the companies who think it's stealing when you ignore commercials are already working on ways to force you to watch ads, recorded or not, short of getting up from your couch. Fantastic.)

    "And we never associate the set-top box address with a physical home address."

    Maybe not, but I can imagine the set-top box address being associated with the unit's serial number, and the serial number in turn is what gets associated with the owner's name, address, phone number, etc - all of which is valuable to direct-mail and telemarketing.

    With the onset of more and more invasive means of advertising (even sometimes popping up during shows), I'm glad I don't watch TV all that much anymore.

  • I wouldn't call this a feature...I would call it a major security hole. They tried "targeted ads" on the Web through the use of cookies, and sites that take your information to be used by advertising companies. It didn't work. Most security-conscious users disabled the cookies, and refrained from using the "ad-collection sites".

    A profiling engine running in the set-top box determines which ads are played in a particular household. The box is given an initial profile and it then gathers information based on the household's television viewing habits. Anderson emphasized that this information never leaves the set-top box.

    Okay, can anyone else say "bull-s!%$"? If that profiling information never leaves the STB, how can you guarantee me that an anonymous and random cracker doesn't decide to open my STB and look at the profiling engine's settings to see what I've been watching or when? Or what about the NSA, FBI, and other government agencies? Do I really want them to be able to see what I've been watching on TV?

    An example provided by Invidi is that 90 percent of Lexus ads are seen by viewers who will never buy a Lexus. With targeted ads, only those viewers likely to buy a Lexus would see Lexus ads.

    This has been brought up, but how the hell is my STB supposed to know that I just bought a car? Let alone a specific make and model? Are you going to tell me that this is just "simply for advertising purposes"? It's another invasion of my privacy, plain and simple.

    Downey pointed out that it impossible for viewers to make a purchasing decision based on a single 30-second spot. It might take a suite of five or six commercials to entice a viewer to purchase a product.

    Isn't that what Infomercials are for? Products that you would probably never buy if they had just a 30-second TV spot? Why would I want to sit through 5 or 6 commercials for the same product (not saying I sit through any commercials anyway, thanks to cable's movie channels and DVDs)?

    Invidi says there is an upside for viewers. The company says viewers will only see ads relevant to their lifestyle and will not experience repeated airing of ads for products for which they have no interest.

    Again, can anyone say "bull-s!%$"? An upside for viewers my ass. More like an upside for greedy corporations.

    Invidi says its system is designed to assure privacy. "The system never knows what the viewer is watching since the headend never knows specifics about what the set-top box is doing," said Anderson. "And we never associate the set-top box address with a physical home address,"

    Yet again, more "bull-s!%$". If they can associate the STB address (presumably equivalent to the MAC address on your network card, or a serial number for the TV itself), then they can, and will, trace it to a home address if they feel it would help the ad campaign ("Anderson explained that the set-top box has a unique ID that is analogous to a street address."). And never knowing what I'm watching simply because the ad-inserter doesn't query the STB? I don't think so. The article says that the ads are "inserted via a channel change without the viewer realizing it.", so now, not only do you know what I'm watching, but you can change the channels at will? And if it is a channel change, how does the STB know which channel to go back to, unless its storing it somewhere for later access? And wheres the guarantee (yes, I like pieces of paper that says I can sue somebody if it's done differently) that says the company ISN'T going to look at those channel registers, and no one else is able to either?

    I didn't mean to turn this into a really long rant, but I feel very strongly that these "targetted ads" do not work. They don't work when you USPS them to me, and they definitly don't work when you email them to me. Why would I want to put the annoyance of "popup ads" combined with the very large security holes of this system onto my TV so the government can know what I'm watching? I think that this is a horrible idea, and that the government gets enough information from my habits just by being able to associate my IP address with the sites I visit. And if the consumers of the world haven't got enough spam-email and popups ads for several lifetimes by now, I've got a couple good sites that should fill up your quota for advertising really quick.

  • Privacy and ads and Tivo, oh my. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @06:11AM (#4226538) Homepage
    Waaaay back when Tivo was first introduced on the market, a friend and I were talking about the fact that it had a subscription fee. My take on this was...

    I wouldn't mind anonymous statistics being collected about my viewing habits. If the company running the service didn't require any form of registration other than maybe some basic demographic info like my age, income, gender and geographic region. Once a company has my name/address/credit card number/phone number, etc, I don't want them collecting ANY information about what I watch or what kind of products I'm interested in, sorry. Since the Tivo was subscription-based, it didn't meet my criteria in this department.

    An intelligent time-shifting capable set-top box COULD record commercials based upon your interests and play them during the "commercial break" of a show instead of the original non-targeted ads. This is something I'd actually like. I build my own computers, I don't need to see any Dell commercials. I am not female, I don't need to see commercials for home pregnacy tests. I don't drink beer. Etc, etc. There's a new show coming out that's like Junkyard Wars? Albertsons (it's a grocery store here in the south) is having a sale on Snapple? Those are commercials I want to see.

    Even the Tivo's concept of "thumbs up/thumbs down" could be used on commercials... If it's a product or service I'm interested in, I can let the box know that's the type of commercials I'd rather see more of. While I know most people would rather have NO commercials, I consider ones that are at least relevent to what I'm interested in to be a reasonable compromise, especially if it gets me a TV timeshifting box subscription-free. And hey, it even benefits the advertisers since I'd be more likely to buy things that interest me... Everybody wins.
    • How would real time streaming of ads (or surreptitiously changing the channel we watch for the duration of a commercial) be different from what Gator and some other hijackware programs try to do?

      If this were really only done for the blocks of ad space that are already being held for "local station identification" and local broadcast ads, I can't see that the advertisers would have a problem with this. However, if it acts like a Gator and talks like a Gator, and substitutes its own targeted ad over the original advertisement, it is stepping on the toes of the original purchaser of the advertising time. That seems as wrong as Gator inserting its own banners or inserting hyperlinks in words to ads of its own.
    • Mod this up to Hollywood and the device manufacturers! Seriously, I've had similar thoughts and wondered many times, why not!?!? This would make advertising many times more effective, because I really would like to watch other shows like the ones I enjoy, because I would like to take advantage of a sale on a product I like, or learn about products similar to the ones I like, etc...

      Privacy concerns? Bah, put all this automation in the friggin' device itself, locally, or use anonymous correlation and stats gathering.

      It is a change to the current ad model, but it's not that hard, and it benefits everyone involved.
    • The problem with all of these new ad-models is that they bring in additional revenue, not just replace the existing revenue.

      The goal should be to increase the value of the ad-time, and thereby decrease the quantity while maintaining the revenue. If an advertiser pays 10x more for "interested" eyeballs, I would expect to see considerably fewer ads.

      The advertiser is getting much more-- presumably one to one feedback on the short-term effectiveness of the ad.

      Of course, the privacy concerns are something to be concerned about. I don't want to be bombarded with beer ads because "they" know that I was delayed an hour on the subway... and that the last time that happened I went to the bar.. Nor would I want to be targeted with ads designed to compete with each other-- Ford matching all of Honda's ads. Neither of these seem ethical.
    • We have them in the Pacific Northwest, and in Arizona when I lived there. Does anyplace NOT have Albertsons?

      (I'm rather annoyed that their marketing department has decided to drop the apostrophe from their name... bastards.)

  • I work in the CATV industry and the statement 'Thesystem never knows what the viewer is watching since the headend never knows specifics about what the set-top box is doing,' is blatantly false.

    Think about it for a moment ... if you order an IPPV (Impulse Pay Per View) or VOD (Video on Demand) movie, the system knows what extra charges to put on your bill, doesn't it.

    We can read the frequency out of both the SA (Scientific Atlanta) and Motorola set-tops as well as its power-up state. No, we can't tell whether you went to the fridge during the commercial, but we can tell if you didn't). Correlating this information with what we know about the Head-end programming and its easy to create a database of what people (or a person) are watching.

    There is even a company (called Navic) whose entire business model is to collect data from digital set-tops and provide Nieson like viewing
    statistics to the cable providers.

    Don't be confused between what people say they
    are or aren't doing and what they CAN do.

    • Interesting.

      Any idea what sort of timings are used to assertain wheather you're actully watching something, or you've just left your digi-box on and gone to bed?

    • I am actually working on the Invidi technology under nondisclosure, so I will not go into detail. However when they say they can target advertizing AND protect the viewer's privacy, they mean it. They have a clever approach that works. Please don't be too quick to confuse what anyone can easily figure out for himself or herself, and what is non-obvious but true. tobias robison.
  • This is basically controlling what your devices, in your own home do. Just like DVD players deciding that you cant fast-forward and just like DRM. Who cares if they just want to show you adverts that interest you, the principle is that you want full control over your things. So, unless they put set-up programs into these products that allow the user _full_ control to turn any thing on or off, then all these products - digital decoders, dvd players, set-top boxes etc are flawed.

    We have other 'fair use' laws that grant us rights such as the ability to back-up for personal use, i think its about time we were given more legal rights to protect us from restrictions - such as full control over devices. If you're restricted in what you can do in any artificial way then that should be clearly advertised before you buy the product, eg.

    "This DVD player adheres to the DVD standards. Only region X discs will play in this device, any DVDs bought from countries outside X will _not_ play in this device. This player may also disable the ability to 'fast-forward' and 're-wind' according to instructions coded on the disk. Due to the macrovision system, if your TV does not have SCART or composite inputs you may need additional equipment to use this player."
  • Wasn't this one of things that the serial number in the PIII chips supposed to do? The public didn't like it to much and Intel included a way for the consumer to turn the serial number off. It will be interesting to see if people stand for this or has the public just gotten used to loosing its privacy.
  • The future holds : this [sourceforge.net]
  • subscription fees for cable? Am I merely paying for the opportunity to be exposed to more and different types of advertising? For the $100+/ month I pay for cable + roadrunner I should be getting all this stuff advertising free. I'm dropping it all- time to pick up a book. With DVD, I believe my family and I are fine media-wise. Also, has it ever struck anyone else as funny that the shows on TV are called 'programming'?
  • I work in talk radio, and we run mostly syndicated national programming. The new receivers have the ability to send ads directly to our reciever at the station to target the market. The first use of this I heard was, interestingly enough, an ad for an upcoming television special. The end of the spot was tagged with the local affiliate's channel number (i.e. "See it on NBC 12). This also opens up national accounts more easily. Auto manufacturers often have promotions that are only valid in certain parts of the country. Those could be targeted directly to the viewer by location ("Stop by your Virginia Ford dealer, and get a rebate, blah blah blah") Also is good for companies that have different branding in different locales (Hardee's and Jack in the Box come immediately to mind).

    I do concede, however, that this can be abused. The idea of having people over to watch football on Sunday, and all the breaks having ads for 800 sex numbers and "Girls Gone Wild" is a little disconcerting (based, of course, upon my^H^Hthe viewer's normal habits).
  • ...because I for one am tired of seeing Tampon ads all day long on every channel!

    Or that same damn "friends" clip [commercial] on TBS 34 million times an hour.

    Man I'd love to see ads selling computers parts, books, math/crypto books, etc...

    Tom
  • Durring a Channel Change?

    ARE YOU KIDDING?

    One reason I hate modern Set Top Boxes is that changing channels is TOO OBVIOUS! Remember the old days when changing a channel was a quick flick and there you were, from one commercial to another?

    Now days the box is slow -- you change channels and there's a screen for of momentary garbage, a horrible sound, and if you're really unlucky, a few moments worth of delay before the next channel appears, then it takes it's sweet time drawing the menu options and crap to the TV.

    It's pure, crap. I stopped watching TV around the time CD-Based Video Game Systems had better load times.

    And don't blame it all on "Old Set Top Boxes" because from what I've seen the newer they get the worse they get, the more crap they pump onto your screen, and the more BS you have to sort through just to watch something.

    I firmly believe I'm better off without television.
    • Either you have an old box or your cable company loads it down with a lot of crap. You might check and see if you can trade your old box for a newer box. I had a problem with my cable, and they traded out the box (didn't solve the problem - had to solve it myself) - the new box had more memory and a faster processor - channel changes were quicker, the menu was quicker - everything was quicker (I have two boxes, and the other one is the old model, so I know that it is quicker, and not just me). The only thing I don't like about the new box is that it looks ugly. Also, check your cable lines - if you are getting garbage, etc on a digital box (ie, mpeg redraw crap) - your cable line may be crap - you want RG6 cable from the point where it comes from the cable company to your TV all the way - use 2.4GHz splitters only (some boxes have a "fall-back" mode to 900MHz that sucks - you don't want the fall back). If you cable is older RG59 (or worse), get it replaced if you can (in a house it is easiest - but if you are in an apartment, you are screwed). I am not saying the signal is causing snow, but if you have a slow older box, the processor is having to do a lot of extra work for error correction, etc on the signal that is getting through - causing the mpeg glitches, etc you see.
  • This really is not something that bothers me as long as it does not mean *MORE* ads (which I would imagine is impossible since to do so they'd have to cut out portions of the shows and that would be really damn obvious).

    If I have to see ads anyway, I would rather they be ads I might be interested in rather than useless crap.

    I would much rather see car ads, computer game ads, ads about local events, specials at Giant or Safeway than see some useless crap like douche ads, tampon ads, that piece of shit Dell Dude (god he sucks), etc.
  • I mentioned this over a year ago... Motorola's DCT500 will have the capability (if the modules are added) and the DCT7000 will have it built in along with a PVR.

    this is really really old news to anyone in the industry... we saw them in action at CAB over a year ago, and heard the first "goig to do this" news stories over 2 years ago. Motorola has then in late beta testing... so they already have them in existance and working... so this company is really late to the game and has a snowball's chance in hell at making it work... Espically cince the worlds largest Commercial insertion equipment company (Seachange) already has a seamless integration system underway to couple the cable system commercial insertion system with the digital Set top box targeted insertion system...

    good luck to the new guys but motorola has it locked up.
  • ...those damn Loreal 'because i'm worth it' hair product ads.

    (I don't know if you get them in America, but anyone in the UK will know what I'm talking about
    )
  • What happens under this regime if I'm a flipper -- I change the channel at commercials to see what's on? The only way commercials actually see screen time in my house is if the TV is on as noise while I do something else, or if I'm up to my elbows in meatloaf or something else messy that makes the remote a bad idea. My wife will mute them rather than listen -- even if she's leaving the room.

  • ...and they can send a code to any given one to change the channel for the period of the targeted ad and the viewer is none the wiser.

    Except for the following case:

    Person1: I have a terrible secret that I've been keeping from you all season!

    Person2: What is it?

    Person1: Well, I ...

    Advertisement: -The new Wonderbra at Victoria's Secret!-

    Person2: If that's the case, then we no longer have anything to say to one another. Goodbye!

  • I am forced to wonder how long it will take before only the most "popular" commercials are available. I'm sure it would start out with everyone getting to see only the commercials for things they are interested in but I fear that eventually only certain segments will provide the most cost-effective advertising (for instance, soda, fast food, cosmetics, and clothes). When that is identified I fear we will be back where we started, except now my TV that *I* paid for can railroad me into seeing whatever the advertisers want and use me as yet another captive audience.

    Sounds too much like the movies these days to me. Remember how when this whole commercials before the movies thing got started it was *entertaining* commercials only and very few. Well, now we're up to six commercials and at least half of them are a complete yawn. Didn't drop the ticket prices, in fact they went up around here just like before.

    So as far as I'm concerned they can keep all of their advertising "innovations".

  • Yeah, I can just imagine: I'm sitting there watching a football game with my family/friends and during one of the commercial breaks a few porn advertisements come on. The box figures: hey! I watch a lot of porn! Lets show more ads for the specials this month!!
  • Seems like all set-top boxes have a unique ID and they can send a code to any given one to change the channel

    Does this mean I have to find the manual override to prevent them from dropping my shields when I demand data on the Genesis device?

  • Otherwise, how would settop box, S/N 7826435, network address # 132ABQ, get delivered to Joe Bloggs, who lives at 123 Main St?

    Oh, I know. They give them out anonymously on the street. And then, somehow, the box automagically knows if I've just bought a car.

    'And we never associate the set-top box address with a physical home address.'"

    Don't lie to me, fool.
  • Bruce Anderson, Invidi chief technology officer said: "All the information from the 2000 census is available for free from the United States government," Anderson said. "No one is out in front of their mailbox with a shotgun to prevent direct marketers from distributing targeted print advertising. Yet with television, there is a greater level of concern."

    DANG!!! THAT'S all I had to do to keep the direct mail out of my mailbox!?!

    Time to oil up the railgun!!!

    Just my 2 humerous cents,

  • Reading this article just make me think back about the good old days of iMake. At my last job, we were already in test deployment of a digital VOD system that had targeted advertising. Incorporating the Connect Ad-delivery system, this was to be in two multiple-dwelling-units here in the Washington D.C. metro area. Unfortunately, like everyone else, we saw our lovely contract belly up as September 11 came. Mother Verizon decided to pull the plug.

    However, we had already showcased this VOD technology in several trade shows.

    Maybe I'll submit my resume to them just for kicks and giggles since I never signed an NDD when I left my last job. :-)
  • "If you've just bought a car, you might see an ad that reinforces your decision and that ad might reference the vehicle's warranty or anti-lock breaking system,"

    Um, sure.. and exactly how do they know that you've just bought a car? They might not be collecting it yet, but you can bet they will be. Your private info is their wet dream.

  • Mentality issues. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gray ( 5042 ) on Tuesday September 10, 2002 @10:49AM (#4228095)
    Here's the way TV works:
    -You identify an audience you think an advertiser wants. (ex, women 18-34)
    -You develop content that will (hopefully) appeal to that audience.
    -You sell access to that audience to the advertiser.

    Take away the advertising and nobody gets out of bed in the morning.

    Make the advertising more profitable and there is money to blow on the content. Make it less profitable and you'll be watching crap. Broadcast quality TV is still VERY expensive to make.

    "No no", you say, "the greedy networks will just keep the money." I ask you, when has competition ever let that happen with any medium in the past?

    Besides, nobody really cares that you watch more porn then PBS except you and your self inflicted guilt.
  • "All the information from the 2000 census is available for free from the United States government," Anderson said. "No one is out in front of their mailbox with a shotgun to prevent direct marketers from distributing targeted print advertising. Yet with television, there is a greater level of concern."

    Well duh..... Mail spam can be ignored (ie: tossed directly in the garbage), while you can't skip these (as easily). If they are going to equate themselves with mailed advertisement, htey should also give us the means to ignore them. A built in comercial skip would be nice. Or maybe just hakt the box to ignore these channel change commands.
  • "The system never knows what the viewer is watching since the headend never knows specifics about what the set-top box is doing,' said Anderson. 'And we never associate the set-top box address with a physical home address.'"

    If this is true, then not only as someone above wondered how the ads are targeted, how does the headend know WHEN to insert the ad? I predict a LOT of angry consumers missing pieces of their favorite shows.

  • Yes, only the Consumer Broadband Digital Television Protection Act would allow such information gathering to occur, which would cause certain select ads to be shown to only your target group. Let's face it... those Digital Cable and Digital Satellite signal converters do keep track of your viewing habits... and it's all because of the CBDTPA.
  • And what happends if the program you are watching has its advert breaks timed differently to other channels?? Your set top box tunes to a targeted ad and you miss an ad sized chunk of your program.

    How would this ever work?

    The only way I could see it working is if groups of channels timed ads to be at the same time.

    Hold on! ads at the same times? I'll bet it wouldn't be long before someone (me maybe) figured out that with set advert breaks you could set your pvr to skip them :)

    On the other hand it would be quite cool to intercept the change channel signal and use it to pause a pvr's recording
  • One implication of this system is that good data as to what's a commercial and what isn't is embedded in the data stream. So ad blockers that work really well become possible. PVRs will be able to skip commercials more effectively. We'll probably see an add-on for Linux-based PVRs within weeks after this info becomes available.
    1. A profiling engine running in the set-top box determines which ads are played in a particular household. The box is given an initial profile and it then gathers information based on the household's television viewing habits. Anderson emphasized that this information never leaves the set-top box.
    2. "If you've just bought a car, you might see an ad that reinforces your decision and that ad might reference the vehicle's warranty or anti-lock breaking system," explained Downey. "On the other hand, if a viewer is in the 34th month of a 36-month lease, they will see ads that will highlight favorable interest rates and rebate programs."

    So, by noting that you're watching episode 6 of season 3 of ER, it can tell you're in the 34th month of a 36 month lease? Sure it can.

    You'll notice they were careful emphasise the privacy only on the viewing habits section. The rest of it they're actually planning to abuse your privacy (buying habits, loan details, medical insurance?, etc.) as much as it takes. But, by that point, they're hoping to have misdirected you with all the smoke and mirrors of intentional [mis]emphasis.

    If they were any more intentionally dishonest about privacy issues, they'd be forced to run for congress.

    • Perhaps you should reconsider who is abusing privacy in this scenario. The STB will only know that you have just purchased a car if 1) you tell them or 2) your car dealer/leasing company/bank tells them. The fact that the advertisers are taking advantage of data about you sold by *other* companies does not make them the bad guys.
  • No, the postman is doing his job. If they required snail mail spammers to deliver their letters by hand that may be a different story. How about about creating an enhanced caller ID service that required telemarketers to submit enough info to it so we could easily sue/physicaly locate them while they're at it?
  • Hopefully someone will come up with a way to filter
    these "change channel" commands. Some sort of junkbuster-like-proxy box that sits on the cable.

    All advertising sucks. All the time. Anywhere.

    There are no exceptions.
  • For my box to know when to switch me over to advertising the content must be flagged. So hack my box to play a nice screen saver when the content flag is reset.
  • Bruce Anderson, Invidi chief technology officer and a former Sarnoff employee, explained that Sarnoff has critical intellectual property for the bitstream splicing and manipulation and MPEG coding that enables the desired switching with minimal latency.

    "No one else has the ability to do this with low latency," said Anderson. "With our tuning algorithm there is no more latency than one experiences with spot insertion at a cable headend. Essentially these ads are inserted via a channel change without the viewer realizing it.

    1. I know that my Motorolla digital cable box takes at least 2 seconds to decode the MPEG when a channel is changed. Perhaps Invidi has algorithms that can splice the bitstream with no latency, but the viewer will notice when an ad is inserted.

    2. The article implies that viewers watch commercials. Perhaps if the goal is to target advertising, perhaps Sarnoff (er RCA, I mean Thomson) should develop IP on disabling channel surfing during commerical breaks.

    3. If this is as ground breaking as their website [invidi.com] then this is the future. Aside from this article, Invidi is not linked to by Google.

  • I wonder if the advertising industry has thought through this whole targeted advertising thing. Kids and their influence make up a HUGE market, but what if, say, a parent set up their preferences such that it did not include any kid-centric advertising - especially during the times when kids are most likely to be watching?

    What if someone who is interested more in ensuring their privacy, sets up a profile that includes most of what he/she is never likely to buy? Sure, they'll have to suffer through the commercials, but that happens now anyway. The upshot is that they'll be protecting their privacy while maintaining the status quo, but still gaining the benefit offered by a set top box.

    Hmmmm...a saying comes to mind..."Be careful what you ask for...you just may get it."
  • This is all hype, and it quite frankly angers me as a cable engineer. To effectively use this with more than one ad at a time, you'd need dozens of channels running these MPEG streams in real time -- Space that no cable company has to give. The article is filled with terms that mean NOTHING, digital ad insertion has been around for years, and this company has done nothing to perfect the technology. Companies like Terrayon and SeaChange International have been doing this for a long time on a broadcast level (every subscriber in a system) and narrowcast (parts of a system) level for quite some time.

    Now, here's what really irked me about the whole thing to begin with: They say you're not tracked by address or any other personal information for that matter. They're not tracking what you watch (which is another engineering nightmare and also reasonably infeasable to do with any precision - an article I should probably write).

    If they're not tracking any personal information about you and your viewing habits, WHAT'S THE USE OF THE SYSTEM!?!

    Silicon Snake Oil that could only be dreamed up by some marketing idiot.

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