An Ominous TiVo Development

I've mentioned before that I use the TiVoCast function on my TiVo Series II box to download Internet content to my TV for viewing. One of the shows I subscribe to is CNET, which gives me a weekly 15-minute look at technology. This week's episode introduced me to some technology I hoped to never see, and I am not talking about what was on the show, rather what was part of the show's delivery. CNET regularly has a sponsor; this week it was Norton Internet Security from Symantic. A sponsor on these Internet shows is not uncommon and the show actually began with a short commercial.

What was uncommon was what happened next. I was not interested in the first product they were discussing on the show so I hit the TiVo fast forward button and the center of the screen turned into a Norton Internet Security ad. I stopped the fast forward and it stopped. I fast backward and the ad appeared again. Every time I tried to skip something I got an ad. How long till this technology in on all regular TV shows displayed on TiVo? Not that long I would guess as they can obviously charge extra for the ads you now cannot actually skip past.

The "skip 30 seconds" hack should be able to bypass this "feature." I have also noticed that if you start the show, skip past the first ad and stop and save the show, when you reopen it the ads do not appear when skipping unless you go back and replay the beginning of the show (the original ad). I'm sure TiVo will figure out how to get around these issues but I am sure not looking forward to the day they do.