Report: iview compulsory login looms
Optional login to watch iview could become mandatory next year, according to media report.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
ABC viewers will be required to register a login for future iview use if a media report today proves correct.
ABC has offered an optional login for some time, which allows viewers to continue watching shows across different devices in addition to creating and managing your own Watchlist.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports ABC wrote in its new five-year strategic plan in June that it intended to introduce optional sign-in for users of ABC iview and other products like the ABC News app over the next five years. But ABC sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plans are confidential, said the broadcaster intends to make password-protected access compulsory from mid-next year.
ABC sources said compulsory login was designed to make the product more personal for viewers. But it could raise concerns about data privacy, a consideration which was taken into account in internal discussions.
Mandatory login is already required at SBS on Demand, 9Now and 10Play where it is desirable for targeted advertising, while 7Plus is optional.
ABC declined to comment.
6 Responses
7Plus does have some titles which you have to sign in to watch. I believe Grey’s Anatomy was one of them.
I am logged in…have been forever….
A word to ABC if they read this….Please put My iview….back where it was…where I can see it all in one go….Not on the front page where I have to scroll…it is very annoying there with all the other lists…Not Happy 😡😞
It’s not necessary to logon at all, if one knows the tricks.
Anyway, random email addresses are readily available. If one decides to follow the herd and signup then login for … tracking purposes … simply pick a new random address periodically and discard the prior one. Select random rubbish values for any questions answered, perhaps only birth date matters for access to material aimed at older audiences, so simply enter the earliest date possible. Do that and the streaming provider can make no inferences about who you are other than the state you live in based on IP address.
If you access the service via a mobile data service you may find that the service provider is injecting identifiers so test against a web site that displays all the headers etc in requests for you to examine.
Interesting… thanks for your comment.
This is a disappointing proposition but not entirely unexpected. Not sure about if the charter or anything has to say much about equitable access. Certainly for the public interest/news content access should be before the login, with the commercially acquired/drama/international content after the login.
Much like how the ABC News in Depth YouTube channel works (wouldn’t want to lose that). If doing it just go all in and put it behind my myGov account 🙂
It’s not necessary as the online on-demand live programming can be geo-blocked and very likely is already geo-blocked. I’d guess it would be for marketing purposes to find out what programming the demographics are watching and preferences, similar to rewards cards initiatives for shopping where shops gather information about what is being purchased but you can at least earn points and discounts.