Thread: Warning
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Old 12-06-2005, 18:22   #48
Stuart
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Join Date: Jun 2003
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Re: Warning
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignition
Quote:
Originally Posted by paulyoung666
, i wonder how much hdd space it would take to store all that info , and as you do not need to have your phoneline connected after a year , how would they collect the info
Lots, and magic.
Depends.. It would take a few bytes of storage per channel change per user. However, there would be billions (if not tens of billions) of changes per year (think of how many times you change channel each day, then multiply that by 365 and the number of subscribers sky have).

The most sky would be able to do is monitor which box is set to what channel (as the box has no way of detecting who is watching it). They would possibly require hundreds of gigabytes to store all this info, but with 250 gigs drive available for around £100 nowdays, the storage is feasable.

They would have no way of collecting the info if the box is not connected to the phone though. NTL is a different matter. They could collect the info.

It's doubtful it would be worth the effort and cost though. Put bluntly, apart from getting rough ideas of viewing figures for advertising purposes, I don't see that any TV company would have any interest in what we watch.
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