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If you’re a Netflix subscriber, chances are apparently almost 1 in 5 that you watched at least one episode of House of Cards on Friday. How would I possibly know that?
…as many of Netflix’s 40 million subscribers tuned in to the exploits of power-hungry Vice President Frank Underwood, the engineers kept track of each and every one of them, reported Queena Kim of Marketplace. […] According to Forbes, 16 percent of all Netflix members watched at least one episode of “House of Cards” in the 24 hours after season two’s release. And 3.6 percent watched all of the first five episodes.
Apparently one guy watched the whole season immediately with only a three minute break. Aside from the fact that one guy doesn’t have any life at all (at least it took me 4 whole days to watch the whole season), it’s a pretty disturbing thing that Netflix can actually drill down to that level. One guy.
“We monitor what you watch, how often you watch things,” said spokesman Joris Evers.
That means Netflix knows all about your little fetish for anime, and the fact that every Friday night about 11pm you watch something about cheerleaders that has a less than family rating. Does it bother you that they know this? That their statistics are so well-developed that they know you, personally, at your address, watched this or that? Probably not. After all, their movie recommendations are what got them on the map. You’re the one who went in there and rated 200 movies you’ve seen so they could recommend new things for you to watch. But now, here we are in the middle of a surveillance state, and what was once considered convenient now seems a lot like violation.
I’ll be honest with you. This should upset you. In fact, it should burn in your belly like a fire. It should anger you to the point that you’re willing to stand up against it. Does it? It doesn’t matter whether you helped them in the beginning. What matters is now.
If it doesn’t anger you, if you’re still okay with all that’s going on, then you might as well trudge on back to the pasture. You’re just in the way, and the rest of us have work to do.
Merle says: Luckily I’m too cheap to subscribe. Now I’m really glad I’m cheap!
Merle
GWB says: Did you think that Blockbuster or Movie Warehouse didn’t do this back when you had to drive to the store to pick up your VHS rentals? Or that corner store with the back room full of … other videos? This has aways been tracked – same as the library books you have checked out. If you don’t want a video/book/music distributor tracking what you watch/read/listen to, you will have to spend your life stealing stuff through BitTorrent or buying your movies at garage sales.
The only difference now is the government claiming it should have access to that information. And that is where the evil lies. Unless they have a specific warrant based on commission of an illegal act, the government should not be able to request, nor receive this information. Period.
The computers collect these stats automatically. They do it so that they have a record of what you tried to do, if you had trouble and need to call customer service. This is a pretty common practice on websites. They also need to know what’s popular and what’s not, so that they can adjust their catalog accordingly. I don’t know this for sure, but I think they pay for movies based on how many times they’re shown; how are they going to know that if they don’t track it?
I would assert that this does not bother me in the least, and that they are well within their rights (both legally and morally). Now, I don’t think the government needs (or should want) the same level of detail; but, even if it were subpoenaed, my heartburn would still be will the subpoena, not with the service that collected the information to begin with.
If you honestly think that the government is not tapping these private companies for their data, then you haven’t been watching the news lately. if you honestly think that there should be any data kept on you personally, then you should probably go read the Constitution some more. And maybe even start with the Declaration of Independence.
Rebecca says: Why doesn’t your abhorrence for the surveillance state extend to your own blog? You should be allowing anonymous comments if you feel so strongly about it.
Baa-aa-aa-ah.
You’re free to be anonymous. No one forces you to put real information in the comment fields. In fact, in your case, you may want to do that. I’d hate for people to see you not contributing anything intelligent to the discussion under your own name.
Kate says: Snort!
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