One of the distasteful TiVO business practices to me (here’s another) is their overt promotion of user statistics. Right after any major TV event like the Superbowl you’ll find good ol’ TiVo quoting how many viewers watched it, what percentage fast forwarded through ads, etc. Sure, they claim this is anonymous data gathered, but they offer their customers no way — at least to my knowledge — for opting out of this data collection (Update 8/19/06 1:20pm PST: Bob points out that TiVO does offer an opt-out policy if you write or call them, see comments below). I’m not a privacy freak, but this seems very invasive to me, particularly because I have no way of opting out.

Does Orb offer their users to opt out of similarly being counted and tracked? It seems the answer there is also no.

PVR Wire:

In a press release issued today, Orb claims that users spend an average of 45 minutes each day “MyCasting” their personal media. According to Orb, that compares with 31 minutes a day that the average American spends on the internet every day.

Just so it’s clear, I don’t mind collecting these stats for internal company use, but when companies start quoting these and other detailed usage stats in press releases for promotional activity particularly in TiVo’s case where customers are paying for that privilege I think that’s misguided. Like every time I use the service, I’m part of the cattle being watched and used to help their future promotion and paying to have this done. No, no, no.

In Orb’s case they are a free service so it’s a major difference than TiVo. It’s harder to complain about a free service taking similar liberties because sooner or later we give up something using free services.

I think Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is correct when he said (I’m paraphrasing) that we don’t want to look at ads when we are doing everything. The free ad-supported or usage-statistic supported model only works in some cases. Google can get away with it in Gmail because you hardly notice the contextual ads, but if they start hovering over the text while you are trying to read or write an email or autoplaying video/audio (eek!), watch how quickly people dart for the exit. Blogs and RSS feeds can work with ads as long as they don’t interfere but if the ads become too aggressive readers will unsubscribe or reach for ad-blocking software. Ad-supported software only works if it isn’t too intrusive. Let’s not forget how unsuccessful ad-based ‘free’ internet worked.

If I were an Orb competitor I’d come out with a press release that said “we do not and will not publically release statistics of our user’s behavior in any form for promotional or other purposes.” In fact, I’d put that in big bold text as a feature on Orb’s website. And maybe even throw it into one of those competitor comparison tables.

Orb isn’t doing anything without disclosure. It’s all there in black and white in the Orb Privacy Policy (emphasis mine):

The Site may track the number of Site visitors, the number of visitors to each page of our Site, IP addresses, browser type and the domain names of our users’ Internet Service Providers, and we may analyze these data for trends and statistics in the aggregate, but such information will be analyzed and retained in aggregate form only and it will not contain information in a manner that is personally identifiable. We may use such aggregate information to analyze trends, administer the Site, track users’ movements, and gather demographic information for aggregate use. We may also disclose certain aggregate information to third parties in connection with our promotion of the Site and the Orb service, as well as use various portions of the aggregate information in connection with the operation of certain functionality of the Site.

If you want to use my activity to garner more customers than I shouldn’t be paying you (TiVO) or using your service for ‘free’ (Orb), you should be paying me. Of course one could argue that Orb is already paying me with their service being free. No free lunch on the web.

It’s time all these services that are free realized that our time isn’t free. Your time, my time. That’s worth something to us. The content we create — which includes usage patterns of your software — is our data trail, not yours. By giving us the ability to use your software/service for free we allow you to use that for your own use and making the service better, but we should have a say in if that data trail can be used to make you money. And we should be able to take that data trail with us whenever we want. Can I take my usage stats with Orb with me? Not that I see.

Who likes using something and having no way to opt out of usage collection stats that can be made public for promotion even when they’re anonymous? Not me. This is one reason I won’t use Orb. I’m interested to read how other people feel about this activity. Do you care?

Did this post make you go hmm?

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