For years TV companies have had to come up with ways to figure out what you watch and when you watch it. At first, they paid people to track what they watched on paper and later a special TV box. Now with streaming, it can finally be far more accurate and detailed on what you watch and for how long. The problem is the streaming service is the one that owned that data, not the company that made the shows.
Now according to AFTVnews, Amazon has a plan that will let them know everything you watch on your Fire TV streaming player.
Amazon is reportedly building a way for streaming apps on the Fire TV to share with Amazon your viewing activity. This would allow Amazon to display an accurate list of recently watched movies and TV shows even if the shows were not watched through an Amazon service.
There is likely a lot more to this than just creating a better watch list on the Fire TV. This data could be used for better-targeted ads, better market research for what kind of shows Amazon should make, and more.
The good news is Amazon will reportedly let you opt out of this tracking. Also, streaming apps will need to opt-in to this shared data. This idea is not new other streaming players like Apple TV and Google TV already use data like this.
For kids, Amazon will reportedly not track the viewing of the Fire TV when a kid profile is being used.
This new feature is in development, and we do not know when it will be released.