Active Procrastination

Sky Player Rant

Sky is currently advertising the benefits of its Sky Player, a downloadable piece of software that allows you to watch Sky programming without having a connection at home (with a small payment).

I wanted to be a good net citizen so rather than using alternate arrangements to watch a particular show I chose to go through all the steps and hoops in order to access the player. They were advertising the show on the main page so everything should be fine, right?

Not really, Sky Player is almost a front for a phishing scam. To download the player you have to provide a date of birth and place of birth. Then to access the payment system you have to answer the mandatory question of stating your mother’s maiden name.

While concerned about the ultimate fate of my data I provided this information because I wanted to do the right thing. I completed the steps and put some money onto my account. I clicked onto my preferred show only to be told that this program is restricted to Sky subscribers and specifically those with a particular Sky bolt-on package.

I rang them up and was told licensing restrictions meant some shows can only be streamed to certain Sky subscribers. As an aside if you do successfully pay for a program it will be streamed once; you can pay more for additional rental periods. You have to wonder what happens if there is a problem during the streaming.

I can appreciate that there will always be licensing issues but Sky should not be offering a service – promoting that you don’t need to be a subscriber – let alone a specific package if you can’t follow through. At the very least don’t prominently display shows with specific subscription requirements.

I’ve now deleted the player and I tried to cancel the account but there is no delete account function in the profile settings section.

In the end my efforts fell flat and Sky has more details about me than they really should. It’s a good thing that they’re a benevolent corporation right? Then again data security at Sky and it’s parent company can’t be any worse than the British government.  

I wonder if Hulu in the US is as bad?