Ready to have your sense of privacy shot down yet again?

New cable boxes include software that allows companies to track what you watch. That should not be a huge shock to the system. But how they use that data might be.

Software can tell who is watching what, when. Meaning, they will create an individual television viewer identity for each person in a household. And they use that data to deliver commercials to specific targets.

As an example, two people in the same house but in different rooms could be watching the exact same show at the same time, and see different commercials because one is identified as a young male who is into video games and the other is identified as an adult female who purchases luxury items. Maybe they show people in your house commercials for Ford, because they know that in the past you’ve always purchased Chevy’s.

Scary?