Trade privacy for free things and help shape products?

[Gryph]

The cover story on today's USA Today was about companies (like Microsoft and Proctor&Gamble) who pay families or give them free stuff to study their purchasing and product usage habits in order to improve their products or create all new ones. One of the examples was the Old Spice people taping men while they showered to see how to create new products to streamline that process. Another was some Microsoft people just stood behind people and videotaped their usage of Vista. And another example was parents being given these glasses with cameras built in (very James Bondish) to study how parents bathed or clothed their children.

 

Would any of you participate in this kind of targeted product development for money or free stuff or would you prefer your privacy?

 

I would prefer my privacy because I'm not going to let anyone tape me while I shower.

[Lucandrake]

Idk mind you watching me shower as long as the money is good. Although don't blame me if I wear a bathing suit to the shower or disconnect the camera when I go in.

[Gryph]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the men in the shower wore bathing suits.

[L.S.D]

Some people do it for the money

some people do it in the name of science and the goodness of all mankind.

some people just do it for the 60s of fame.

some people are just perverts and get turn on when people watching them

 

take your pick.

[OverlordMondo]

I'm all for money. It'd be hard to tape me using vista or bathing my children though. I'd do the showering one if they made it worth my while though.

[Mooney]

No. No amount of free stuff is worth showing my near nekkid body (or a child's, for that matter) to a bunch of creepy old suits.

[BlackKnight]

Children no. Agreed on that one. Still, if there's decent money in it, and I get to wear swimmers or whatever anyway, why not? Not that the idea of helping out Microsoft (?) is all that enticing, but this is probably the only time in my life where I wouldn't be too embarrassed as all hell to do so.

[Alpha]

I would never agree for such a thing. If that were the case, then whenever I get the option "to send error report" to Microsoft .. I would.

[Robert]

I would not want any creepy marketing types taping me in the shower. If it was Vista, they would probably see the keyboard shoved through the screen. That would impress microsoft no end!

 

I value my privacy very highly indeed, so much so that I have an unlisted phone number, and I burn all personal documents rather than binning them. I won't fill in any surveys, and not a member of any clubs or whatever.

[Alpha]

I wonder what the Microsoft team would think if all of a sudden I booted into Ubuntu. Boy, that would piss them off!