Comcast's New Voice-Controlled Remote Starts Marketing Movies To Your Kids
from the speaking-in-minion dept
For years, broadcasters and cable operators have tried to push the boundaries of good taste and advertising revenue generation. Whether that’s trying to prevent consumers from skipping ads to patenting technology that will use cameras embedded in set tops to watch you watching TV, there’s a relentless thirst for new realms of ad revenue. As a sense of futility extends into the quest for more meaningful privacy protections in the new age of smart hardware and deep packet inspection, cable operators continue to nudge the boundaries of revenue collection ever further.
Comcast’s latest foray into this arena is its new voice-controlled remote, which lets users give some basic keywords to control the company’s set top box. Like similar services, it’s a relatively useful concept, though if it works as well as most such efforts, most people will stick with old-fashioned buttons. Meanwhile, Comcast has apparently started using the technology to strike deals that market certain films to kids:
“Just say the word ?banana? into the remote and you?ll get a list of food programs as the minions talk back. Saying ?kudos? will take you to the Despicable Me 2 movie, and the minions will say ?kudos!? right back. Test out other words in Minionese to see what comes up, and keep checking the Xfinity and Minions social channels for new commands as they?re added. And if you want to get ready for the movie that comes out on July 10, just say ?Minions? to see the trailer.”
To be clear, I don’t think this is all that big of a deal, even though I understand the concerns of those who aren’t thrilled about direct marketing to (and data collection of) children (as we recently saw with the new Wi-Fi-connected Barbie). After all, Minions ads are everywhere. Amazon’s featuring the yellow pill-shaped little rabblerousers on their boxes during a limited cross-promotion. This is just kind of cute, right?
The problem is one of slowly-established precedent (think about the boiling frog anecdote) and the fact that privacy and security have historically been afterthoughts when it comes to these kinds of services. You’ll recall of course that Samsung just got run through the wringer when it was discovered that its smart TVs were collecting, storing, and processing in-room voice conversations (transmitted unencrypted, no less). It was curious to watch Samsung get absolutely hammered for disclosing this in its privacy policy, when storing, analyzing and selling voice data is something many, many companies are engaged in without much transparency and little more than a glance toward meaningful security.
Comcast’s privacy policy doesn’t reference the company’s voice-remote service specifically at all, but does generally suggest it can do pretty much whatever it likes with data collected from your usage of its technology. The company’s FAQ for the service only has this to say about what happens to your kids’ commands once they hit the internet:
“After you speak into the remote, the voice commands are sent to Comcast and its contracted service provider for processing. Comcast and its provider use these voice commands to provide the voice control service (including for quality assurance, troubleshooting, and customer support), improve Comcast?s products and services and improve their voice recognition algorithms.”
Another issue is that as cable operators face increasing competition from internet video, their response so far has been two-fold: to raise rates like it’s going out of style, and to try to cram more and more ads into every minute of television (sometimes by cutting programs shorter). So paying customers are already being bombarded with ads, and now their remotes are pitching product. As cable operators begin losing internet voice and traditional TV customers to over-the-top services, the lust for new revenue streams is only going to accelerate this dissolution of product value further.
Again, I don’t think your cable remote “speaking Minion gibberish” to your tot is that big of a deal in and of itself, but we need to be wary of the temperature of the water we’re collectively sitting in. As noted previously, there’s going to be a pretty fine line between useful and invasive, or cute and terrifying, and contrary to what many think it’s not going to be entirely clear when we’ve crossed the Rubicon.
Filed Under: comcast, kids, marketing, remote control, voice control
Companies: comcast
Comments on “Comcast's New Voice-Controlled Remote Starts Marketing Movies To Your Kids”
It was curious to watch Samsung get absolutely hammered for disclosing this in its privacy policy, when storing, analyzing and selling voice data is something many, many companies are engaged in without much transparency and little more than a glance toward meaningful security.
Sorry, but this is inaccurate and it’s indicating Samsung as doing “right” when, in fact, it was completely wrong.
XBox One has its Kinect, which has both a camera and speaker. The console has a dedicated OS specifically designed to pick up key words from the speaker, using an off-site database to help it translate what it thinks the user wants.
That database is wholly owned and operated by Microsoft and it does not share access information with any third party.
Where Samsung screwed up is it allowed third parties to access these voice commands, no doubt to try and lure ad services to shill products on a personal level.
That’s the difference, and it’s a huge one. No one gave Microsoft any flack because of its Kinect’s passive eavesdropping because people were comfortable this information wasn’t being used or sold to target them.
Marketing tie-ins are annoying, but tolerated, which is how I see this Comcast gig.
Marketing used to suck in personal information, however, is something consumers are (somewhat) aware of and will stand against intrusions which go beyond what they expected.
The latter is already collected by Comcast and sold to third parties, who then market those “Comcast ads” via Comcast services, such as its menu guide or customized 404 error messages when you mistype a web address.
Finally, my own point of view: advertising sucks and I’m sick and tired of companies using this as an excuse to “exist”. It’s worse when there’s now the crap of getting people to pay for said service and still deliver ads.
I wish advertising were illegal.
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“No one gave Microsoft any flack because of its Kinect’s passive eavesdropping”
Are you kidding me? Other than the “you must be online at all times to use your own property” crap, that was the number one complaint about the XBox One from the moment it was launched. To the point where they’ve had to ditch the Kinect being mandatory and drop a bunch of future plans for the combined device after many gave it as a reason for ditching the platform completely. Granted, people were much more concerned about NSA tracking and Microsoft’s own private actions than they were about ads, but they sure as hell were concerned about it.
I know you seem to have a desire to defend Microsoft’s bad decisions with the console on a number of articles recently for some reason, but let’s keep them in the realms of reality.
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I’m not seeing the same reaction against Windows 10 mandatory automatic updates, sadly.
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That’s a different issue in a lot of ways, partly because most people are already used to having Windows automatically update to some degree and partly because there’s a genuine non-trivial positive to doing so (it’s much easier to stop zero day exploits, etc). It takes a lot of work to explain to the average person what the downsides were and why they should be concerned, and far more to sell them on not getting that free upgrade when it arrives.
Whereas, most of the features announced when the XBox One launched (ability to resell games, ability to voice control) were relatively trivial compared to the downsides deemed necessary to have them (console is useless if offline for even a minute, can’t turn off or refuse Kinect connection). Add in the timing (Kinect’s status as an always online, always monitoring device was just after the NSA revelations), and the extra costs associated with hardware, and you got the appropriately strong backlash.
If you want to see the same backlash with 10, you have to make it so the average consumer understand the downsides and how they might greatly outweigh the benefits. That’s a much tougher sell.
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You’re conflating several issues to cloud the discussion.
The entire “online only” has absolutely nothing to do with Kinect, though Kinect’s bundling was an issue. Not of the device, but for the extra $100 price difference of the PS4.
The NSA “tracking” joke is still going on, regardless what the device is. Any form of communication which leaves the house is now NSA fodder (though I certainly don’t disagree).
I don’t read much of Kinect’s voice activation being of concern to people the information is being used outside of its purpose. The ToS even states this information isn’t used but for Kinect.
Samsung did not instill this confidence (much like LG’s infamous data transmission without any consent or knowledge).
You can hate on Microsoft all you want, but don’t try to pretend what was said was fact. Most people arguing over the E3 fiasco still have it wrong, because they didn’t listen to a thing said as they were too busy sticking their fingers into their ears and screaming like a ill-tempered child.
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“The entire “online only” has absolutely nothing to do with Kinect, though Kinect’s bundling was an issue”
No, they were both issues. Not one or the other, both. The fact that you were forced to have a console that was always online and the fact that you were forced to have a device that was always listening were both major concerns and they went hand in hand. Maybe you only caught the price issue, but if so you weren’t listening to the whole conversation.
“The NSA “tracking” joke is still going on”
So are jokes about the BSoD even though Windows is infinitely more stable than it used to be. Guess what? Some labels stick.
“The ToS even states this information isn’t used but for Kinect”
The ToS that presumably wasn’t available at the time of the initial complaints? We can maybe chalk it down to MS’s terrible communication of this information, but it’s no good pointing to data that wasn’t available as a reason why complaints were invalid.
“You can hate on Microsoft all you want”
Don’t pull that crap, this isn’t a fanboy rant. I don’t get involved in that sort of chidish crap and I own hardware from all major manufacturers. You just do have a habit of waving away actual criticism just because you’re annoyed that you missed out on selling a few games. Sorry, the downsides of their proposed system far, far outweigh that benefit.
“Most people arguing over the E3 fiasco still have it wrong, because they didn’t listen to a thing said as they were too busy sticking their fingers into their ears and screaming like a ill-tempered child.”
Whereas you weren’t listening to the actual criticisms, as demonstrated by your above comments. Most of the things complained about were absolutely true until the backlash forced Microsoft to change between E3 and launch. Microsoft’s pathetic attempts at damage control, which included things like telling people to move if they didn’t have a decent internet connection didn’t help the conversation.
You see, beyond the privacy concerns that are very real and should be debated I see intrusion and annoyance. Much like Viola above I’m sick of advertisements to the point my brain is actively ignoring them as if they were noise. An incredibly annoying noise. Most people are already doing the same to some degree but I was surprised when I commented with my partner that I needed a determined product while we had the TV on the evening news and she replied there was an ad about that running at that exact time (she still notices ads on TV it seems). I mean, I was looking at the TV while making that observation, there was an ad about what I needed and I simply wasn’t registering.
So we got to a point that advertisers became so obnoxious we are actively ignoring them.
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Given law enforcement propensity to collect any and all data handed to third parties, how long before this data is fed straight to them.
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Implying that it isn’t already being sent…
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“So we got to a point that advertisers became so obnoxious we are actively ignoring them.”
The best example of this is the way some web ads have gone. Text or static images? No problem, unless the site you’re on is obnoxiously designed, just ignore them. Flashing/animated ads? Now you’re getting annoying. Ads that cover half your screen if your mouse goes near them and/or autoplay video (especially those with automatic sound)? F**k you, I’m blocking them and/or never returning to that site again.
There’s lots of people who would never have thought about blocking the former example who are driven to install ad blockers by the latter. Yet, the reaction seems to be to try and be more intrusive. To my mind, those are the ads I ignore the most, and I’ll stop using both the advertised product and the platform being used to advertise on if they become too much.
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I’ll stop using both the advertised product
That. I’m actively avoiding some companies and products because of intrusive ads, unwanted spam in my inbox.
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An ad is on TV and you ‘need’ what it’s selling, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
You can’t really block out ads. It’s like traffic noise – your brain quickly dampens it, but your ears are still receiving it.
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Mute button. Until they disable it…
As a parent my concern is if a child taking at a remote will be able to order pay per view, on demand, hbo, “premium content”, etc
Big Brother is watching (and listening)!
Any time a device controlled by another party can monitor your speech or actions, the risk goes astronomical! A slippery slope? Think more of a 10,000 foot cliff with no parachute!
luddite alert!!! srsly, getta out of teh way, grampz, ur history
what are you, thirty? time for you to make Logan’s run
luddite!!! getta out of teh way, grampz, ur history
what are you, thirty? time for you to make Logan’s run
“Disclosing” something in a privacy policy is not really disclosing it, it’s covering your ass. Because everyone knows nobody reads them.
“…the voice commands are sent to Comcast…”
Hopefully this won’t count against your data cap. Can you imagine Comcast throttling your connection because you allowed them to advertise to you collect your data?
Are we smarter than a frog?
The boiling frog tale is a myth. If you put a frog in water and slowly increase the heat, the frog will jump out of the water when it gets too hot no matter how slowly the heat increases.
I really hope that we are smarter than frogs.
Re: 'First they came for...'
Yes and no. The frog will hop out, because the increase in heat is immediately noticeable, and has an immediate effect on said frog.
If you slowly ratchet up the rights and power of the government and/or private companies, while you slowly wear away the rights of the public though, assuming you do it right most won’t even notice. Does this make people dumber than a frog? Well, sorta. The loss of rights, if handled ‘properly’, does not cause an immediate change to the majority, so most people don’t realize that the ‘water’ is heating up until it reaches the ‘boiling’ point, at which it’s basically too late.
I have X1 with voice control — not sure I am keeping it because its UI is slow and unpredictable. The voice control tho is push-to-talk as opposed to my tv listening to my clandestine meetings about ball jointed dolls and my little pony.
I suspect that most people will assume the voice processing is done on the remote,or the cable box.
Few will realize it’s sent back to Comcast, and possibly to another, unidentified 3rd party.
I don’t like the idea of providing someone else with a live audio/video feed of my home. Which is why I will never use their remote, just like I’ll never buy an Orwell TV. Oops, I meant “Smart TV” silly me.