Google TV Blocked By Some Networks Over Privacy Concerns
Google TV is currently being blocked by several large TV networks including ABC, CBS and NBC. Those networks have stopped the technology from streaming shows from their companies free Flash video sites, citing privacy concerns as the main reason for the blackouts.
According to Electronista:
The insiders claimed that Google prioritizes searches on Google TV devices like the Sony Internet TV to favor official content over piracy, but Disney was reportedly still unhappy that it wasn’t actively blocking pirates altogether. Google is believed to have enough control to manually hide sites from search results, but such a method wouldn’t satisfy TV networks afraid of thousands of sites going undetected.
In the meantime, some TV networks have actually worked with Google to make their websites more “Google TV” friendly for easier browsing, while Fox TV is still attempting to determine if they will block Google TV until privacy concerns can be raised and corrected.
Google of course will need to act quickly to fix the issue, seeing as Google TV was meant to be a way to bring Internet-capable TV devices to the masses, while circumventing traditional TV standards for a more streamlined process.
Since Google has yet to create a way to pay studios to stream their videos, much like Hulu has managed to do, they rely on other networks to handle that job for them, including Hulu Plus (Hulu’s regular service has blocked them) for streaming TV shows and other television programming.
