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I just read TiVo's Privacy Policy and it's quite arcane. Further, trying to change your privacy preferences isn't easy. Begin bitchy rant now...
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First, it makes a substantive distinction between TiVo Basic and TiVo Plus... and apparently only people with TiVo Plus get their PIVI recorded by TiVo. How the hell do you tell if you have TiVo Plus? Well, apparently if you can do Season Pass recordings, transfer files and get 14 days of programming information; that is, you have to triangulate from features to a service level.
Second, there's no easy way to change your privacy preferences. If you have TiVo Plus, you can call some phone number (1-877-367-8486) and ask to change your privacy preferences. However, the idiotic voice-activated menu there doesn't seem to know anything about privacy (and can't handle even light classical music in the background).
Third, when you get a human, they don't know jack about TiVo's Privacy Policy (granted, this is a n of 1). The guy I talked to seemed to want to purge my email address from all TiVo's records, which isn't exactly what I want. I just want no connection between the information they collect and me (my billing information is me, I suppose).
Finally, any change you make in the service, such as transfering content between DVRs or to your laptop using TiVo-To-Go, automatically resets your privacy preferences, so you have to call them again.
I know privacy officers who spend a ton of time writing privacy policies with corporate counsel. And they try to work hard at making sure they're consistent, readable and legally sound at the same time. After recent experiences and research by Nathan, Jens, Rachna, David Thaw and others at the Samuelson Clinic, I'm starting to feel that privacy policies and license agreements should be handled more in the sense of how Creative Commons does it: They have various levels of abstraction for their licenses and policies. I can imagine that this strategy doesn't work as well when there's the bottom line and negotiations with hollywood litigants to contend with. Harumpf.