Hello all, my apartment has been selected by Nielsen to participate in their program. We don’t really watch much TV but the min is 1h/month and we get something like $500 in the first 2-3 months, so that’s my incentive to say yes. My concern is of course letting Nielsen know that some of the movies/shows I watch were pirated.
I’ve talked with one of their techs and this is how it’s setup: They hook up a box to my AP, connect it to the network, then mount two RF scanning devices to each TV to listen for hidden broadcast signals and to confirm who is watching by having us check-in with a remote-like device. Then they make sure my TVs/streaming devices are on the same network as their box, and they somehow link them via MAC addresses. Nothing is connected to phones or PCs.
Here’s my setup: I’ll have a guest network created for the box and I’ll move the TVs/streaming devices over to that network when I want Nielsen to see what I’m watching. Everything else is on the main network, and I use VPNs on my PCs and phones anyways. I also have a remote server I connect to via a different AP which has a WG tunnel. From this server I stream movies/TV shows via JellyFin, and when I want to connect to it I switch the TVs wifi connection over to the WG AP.
My concerns:
Can Nielsen see what I’m doing regardless of what network my TVs/Streaming devices are on, due to them having the MAC addresses and everything of course going out via my ISPs WAN?
Does it matter if they detect pirated content? I’ve heard it doesn’t but these things can change I’m sure, and I am in a country where you can get in trouble.
If I were to change networks on my TVs/streaming devices will their box complain? This is something I plan on asking the tech when I talk to him next.
It’s hard to find much info on the subject that isn’t dated as Nielsen has changed how there setup works in the last few years.
Thank you fellow crew members and Cheers!
I have no actual knowledge on this but - I’m curious how you were picked for this program?
They seem to cut out chunks of ~5000 homes and then choose one home to represent that group. Pretty dumb imo, but they say when you look at it big-picture it’s more accurate. If I said no they would just randomly pick another home in my area. I think they do use ethnic demographics in selecting their groups, but they don’t look into who actually lives in the home they pick. They state they don’t know anything more than what we happen to be watching, and they can only use data that’s linked to some kind of service like Netflix or YT-TV. As far as who’s watching, they get your ethnicity, age range and sex. On their remote you’re just ‘Person 1’ or ‘Person 2’, etc.