In a lot of people’s minds, video streaming services and other stakeholders are often just tracking people’s viewing habits in a binary way – counting every episode that someone clicks into, and building their viewer profiles that way.
But brand-new reports this week based on a letter sent to a UK Parliament committee show that Netflix is going a bit more sophisticated, with various segments of viewers categorized as ‘starters, watchers and completers.’
Julia Alexander at The Verge reports that ‘starters’ watch at least two minutes of a film or piece of programming.
‘Completers’ have to watch 90% of something in order to be thus classified.
To be considered a ‘watcher,’ the viewer in question will have watched about 70% of a film or episode.
This kind of market segmentation really provides a start into looking at the ways that companies build deeper profiles of users.
It also provides more transparency in how the companies report audiences, for example, with Stranger Things Season Three having said to have garnered a 64 million audience on Netflix within one month.
For some, though, the deeper analysis reminds them that in this day and age of smart home devices and data-connected systems, surveillance is really everywhere.
We don’t really like to be reminded, for example, that due to the Patriot Act, our library book choices are spied on by the government. Some of us don’t really like to think about Netflix analysts sitting there looking at how much of a particular show we’ve watched, either.
Privacy statements notwithstanding, fears about the autonomy of user information have prompted new rules like the European General Data Protection Rule or GDPR, which has revolutionized how companies must hue to a standard when collecting any information about Eurozone individuals.
The new reports on Netflix are also interesting because of the company’s tech stack, and also because of its role in the renowned FAANG group of stocks (Facebook – Apple – Amazon – Netflix –Google) that are now being collectively scrutinized for antitrust issues and privacy violations.
Look for more as tech media digs into the details of how business works at these five mega-firms.
