Nothing I've said is "secret" anyone active in the Smart TV or Interactive TV space knew this was going on and how it worked. When I said intimate I didn't mean secret, I mean I actually used the technology being discussed, and at its very nascent stage.

There were multiple ACR Vendors doing the same thing (Gracenote, Samba TV are two at top of my head, there were many failed vendors in this space)

Google ACR on TVs and you'll find all the info you need https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition

https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/04/cognitive-networks-ces/

(BTW the app in that techcrunch article is the one we worked on)