On Saturday, June 1, 2002, at 03:08 PM, jet wrote:

...

They were even more surprised to find that they won't be allowed to delete the programme for one week, and that more sponsored recordings are on the way. ... <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25436.html>

However, the show didn't take up any user space, but was stored in reserved system space that's kept around for use during software upgrades and whatnot.

If TiVO works the same basic way my UltimateTV (Sony/DirectTV) works, having "Bubba and Ram Dass," or whatever, always in my list of recorded shows for a week would be a massive annoyance. You said you worked for TiVo, as I recall. I suggest you point out to your corporate bosses the Law of Unintended Consequences. I foresee growing irritation, hacks to permanently interfere with TIVo's spam recordings, the "Bubba and Doss" show being unfavorably smeared by angry TiVO customers, and even a grass roots campaign to monkeywrench TiVO in general. By the way, so far my Ultimate TV hasn't tried any such Big Brother tricks on me. Though they may have their own corporate clowns looking for revenue enhancement. Downloaded ads that play before every recorded show can be viewed. Schemes to disable fast-forwarding through commercials. --Tim May "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789