WD management really should be taking note of this sticky over on the Boxee forums; it’s a good example of how to communicate with your user community when there’s a problem and stands in stark contrast to the approaches that have been taken here.
Yeah, the funny thing is, Boxee ain’t making a dime. It’s just open source software…
TonyPh12345 wrote:
Yeah, the funny thing is, Boxee ain’t making a dime. It’s just open source software…
You’ll have to pardon me if I’ve missed a finer nuance here, but is that a serious statement?
Yeah, it sounds insane, doesn’t it, but I’m as serious as a heart attack…
Boxee is almost completely GPL. There’s a little proprietary stuff in it, but not much. MOST of it is XBMC, anyway. Boxee has just put a “wrapper” around all these components. Boxee founder Avner Roman said as much in his Engadget interview back in March… They ain’t making a dime on the Boxee Box, either. Their sole source of revenue is Venture Capital. They convinced D-Link to design the hardware, and Boxee agreed to provide the software at no charge. (D-Link MUST pay SOME licencors, because they’re using things covered under patent like MP3 and some other components.)
Boxee is deeply engaged in getting other third parties to run their code.
Boxee “supposed” revenue generation will commence when market penetration is extensive enough that their “Data Mining” (harvesting user data and processing it) will be sold to advertisers, marketers, and content programmers.
As far as I know, you MUST participate in the data harvesting or the software won’t activate, but I don’t know first-hand.
Read Boxee’s Privacy policy.
2. How We Use Personal Information
Personal Information is or may be used for the following purposes: (i) to provide and improve our Sites, services, features and content, (ii) to administer your use of our Sites, (iii) to enable you to enjoy and easily navigate the Sites, (iv) to better understand your needs and interests, (v) to fulfill requests you may make, or (vi) to personalize your experience. We may use your contact information to provide or offer (including via e-mail) software updates and product announcements, and to provide you with further information and offers from us or third parties that we believe you may find useful or interesting, including newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information on services and products offered by us or third parties.
Boxee being open-source or being GPL has nothing to do with profitability. Google runs on many open-source platforms and projects. Just more disingenuous FUD being spread about open-source and what that actually means. (FYI, the WD Live family runs on the Linux platform which is also open-source)
But it is true, that is a great example of being open to your users. Companies should take note.
You also left out the next section of their privacy policy, which tells you how to opt out in their account settings from your information going out:
If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive any such communications, please follow the “unsubscribe” instructions provided in any of the communications sent to you, or you may opt-out of receiving communications at any time by updating your “account settings” information. (See “Changing or Deleting Information” below.)
I left it out because it’s not germane. You can opt out on emails, but you cannot opt out on data mining.
That’s incorrect. Their “data-mining” is the standard cookies privacy policy which is on nearly every site (You can check the Google PP and the WD PP). You can opt-out of any 3rd party information sharing on their site through your account. It’s a standard disclosure.
I’m not sure why you’re arguing this. Avner was the source of my point of information… It’s being discussed in the Boxee forums, and he’s on record stating as much. Just go watch the interview with him on Engadget from back in May. I’m not making it up… 
They don’t disclose that aspect in the privacy policy because they don’t have to. If they don’t make the data PERSONALLY identifiable, it’s not subject to a privacy disclosure, at least on its surface. TiVo does the same thing… Monitoring your viewing habits and selling that like Nielson does its data.
Right, any subscription based services do that, that’s a given. I was talking about the email portion, where you only posted half of it
nabeel wrote:
That’s incorrect. Their “data-mining” is the standard cookies privacy policy which is on nearly every site (You can check the Google PP and the WD PP). You can opt-out of any 3rd party information sharing on their site through your account. It’s a standard disclosure.
And quite possibly everything you watch, and the type of items you watch.
nabeel wrote:
Right, any subscription based services do that, that’s a given. I was talking about the email portion, where you only posted half of it
The email portion is irrelvant and nobody subscribes to boxee box, they buy the box and don’t expect it to spy on them.
I love XBMC but I just can’t stand this tacky boxee design.
