Is this a deal-breaker? Probably not. But the more privacy focused among us might see it as an issue. I personally don’t, because Vodafone already knows if I’m home or not based on my cell phone location and probably a great deal more (if they were that way inclined), based on my mobile data usage.
Or my txt messages. What TV shows I like is a lower priority in terms of privacy. Besides, you can find out what TV I like: here anyway.
There is also a data-harvesting ‘Intelligent TV’ function that you must opt-in for. As far as I can tell, it only really adds suggestions to your screen and does something to the “Kids” app that I have no inclination to enable as I neither need suggestions on what to watch, nor have children.
The next topic to explore, would be content ownership. Who owns your recorded TV? Well, Sky and Vodafone are on equal footing here. Both services have the option to preclude content from being recorded. Both services have the option of recalling previously recorded content and deleting it from your device.
One massive benefit the Vodafone does have over Sky is if you have two Vodafone TV’s (since it’s all cloud based) you can grab your recordings from either unit (that includes Sky if you have multi-room, so you can record on one and watch on the other).
The thing to watch for is when storage becomes a concern for Vodafone – are they going to oust your older recordings in favour for new ones? Is a policy change going to reduce your space limit (Microsoft have done it before with OneDrive, why not Vodafone too?).
Are they hoping that an overwhelming number of customers pay them for a Sky subscription to subsidise the service for the rest of their customer base that only want to use it with Freeview?