Doug's Inner Net News
News and views from a software developer's perspective
Friday, September 27, 2002
Speaking of DVDs... When Disney wants to sell the home video version of a movie, they say "Now available on video and DVD." Huh?
I noticed today that whenever I put a video DVD in my computer's DVD drive, I magically get a cookie from Interactual (a company that licenses video codec implementations). I tried using a network sniffer to see if the DVD player "phones home", and apparently it doesn't. But what information is stored in the cookie? Maybe information about how frequently I watch video DVDs, what settings I use, what the capabilities of my computer and graphics card are, etc. This is all valuable information to a company like Interactual. Perhaps my identity is not revealed -- let's give them the benefit of the doubt. So does it bother me? Yes, it does. Why? I'm not real sure about that. If they are gathering anonymous information that is aggregated and helps them to allocate resources more efficiently in their company, then I really shouldn't be bothered. Assuming there is competition -- and I believe there is -- efficiency is good, because it leads to lower prices for the consumer. Yet something still bothers me about this surreptitious gathering of information. I think what bothers me is the thought that the boundaries are shifting, and who knows where they will be when they stop shifting? If efficiency is an argument in favor of information gathering, then who knows how far companies will go, with a goal of allocating their resources more efficiently?
News and views from a software developer's perspective
Friday, September 27, 2002Speaking of DVDs... When Disney wants to sell the home video version of a movie, they say "Now available on video and DVD." Huh?
12:30:37 AM 
I noticed today that whenever I put a video DVD in my computer's DVD drive, I magically get a cookie from Interactual (a company that licenses video codec implementations). I tried using a network sniffer to see if the DVD player "phones home", and apparently it doesn't. But what information is stored in the cookie? Maybe information about how frequently I watch video DVDs, what settings I use, what the capabilities of my computer and graphics card are, etc. This is all valuable information to a company like Interactual. Perhaps my identity is not revealed -- let's give them the benefit of the doubt. So does it bother me? Yes, it does. Why? I'm not real sure about that. If they are gathering anonymous information that is aggregated and helps them to allocate resources more efficiently in their company, then I really shouldn't be bothered. Assuming there is competition -- and I believe there is -- efficiency is good, because it leads to lower prices for the consumer. Yet something still bothers me about this surreptitious gathering of information. I think what bothers me is the thought that the boundaries are shifting, and who knows where they will be when they stop shifting? If efficiency is an argument in favor of information gathering, then who knows how far companies will go, with a goal of allocating their resources more efficiently?
12:28:40 AM