Direct TV Subscribers

[ThomWV]

I live far out in the country where cable doesn't exist, and never will, and there are only two broadcast stations that could possibly be received. We use a small dish.

I am certain that Direct TV monitors what shows are being watched and when. I have FOX blocked out, I won't watch Dennis Miller, and when Novak comes on the channel gets changed on CNN. You know, when people quit watching those clowns loose their jobs; how much longer do you think Miller will last?

Stop watching them to see what sorts of outrages they are comming up with, just stop watching them at all.

[kutastha]

1. All directv is going to see me watching

is Laker games.

[still_one]

2. They cannot tell what you are watching

communication is only one way. You use a phone line connected to the receiver to transmit other information

[RobertSeattle]

3. I think you are thinking about Tivo

DirecTV owns Tivo (I think), but a plain vanilla DirecTV system only "tracks" your pay purchases so DirecTV can ge their bucks. Tivo apparently does "gather" more information about the user, but I'm not too concerned. Most of the day my Tivo's are "pointing" to inane things while I'm away so I doubt they gather much useful information.

Nielson rating are still the gold standard in the TV industry as far as I am aware.

[user]

4. dump direct

go for dish tv they have freespeech and Link tv which are a Godsend when you want to see something other then the bs that we are allowed to get in the good old us of a try it it puts the rest to shame

[theoceansnerves]

5. i used to be paranoid about this

when i had dish network. you're supposed to keep your receiver plugged into the phone line and i was always worried it would send back data on what i was watching. i never had it plugged in, and i could hear the modem clicking on quite a few times during the day.. it never affected anything though, not having it plugged in.

[mike1963]

6. They can't find out what you watch except for PPV movies. (I know

about this because my 2nd job is installing satellite dishes.) Of course they know what 'package' you have, obviously but there is no mechanism to tell them which channel you have punched up.
;-)