'Tracking Pixels and Cookies' Can Monitor TV Viewing 'Specific' to Individual Set, Says Vizio

Vizio developed a system of "tracking pixels and cookies" that enables "real-time" monitoring of TV "programming consumption specific to an individual television or other viewing device,” said a patent application published Thursday at the Patent and Trademark Office. “The ability to accurately determine in near real-time exactly what TV program or advertisement each and every TV viewer in the U.S. is watching at any moment has long been an unmet market need,” said the application, assigned to Vizio Inscape Technologies, and naming Zeev Neumeier, Michael Collette and Leo Hoarty as inventors. “One reason this has been such a challenge is because it would require being able to identify not just what channel has been tuned to, but specifically what content is being watched, since the media actually being consumed by the viewer can include not just the scheduled programming but also regionally or locally-inserted advertisements, content that has been time-shifted, or other entertainment products.” The invention envisions that information about media consumption “by such specific television sets or other viewing means may be returned to a commercial client of the system through a trusted third-party intermediary service,” it said. “In certain embodiments, encoded tokens may be used to manage the display of certain events as well as to enable robust auditing of each involved party's contractual performance.” Vizio reached an agreement with the FTC in February to pay $2.2 million to settle allegations it fashioned its Inscape viewer-tracking function in its smart TVs to spy on consumers' viewing habits without their knowledge and then sold the data to third parties (see 1702060042). Company representatives didn’t comment Monday on commercial plans to use the technology described in the new patent.