Philips clarifies about the TV-advert enforcer article

An article written by Barry Fox in the New Scientist entitled The TV-advert enforcer which made it also in Engadget, Gizmodo and Slashdot, has resulted in Philips to issue a statement..

Inventors from Royal Philips Electronics (Philips) filed a patent application, as yet not granted, that enables watching a television movie without advertising. However, some people do want to see the ads. So, we developed a system where the viewer can choose, at the beginning of a movie, to either watch the movie without ads, or watch the movie with ads. It is up to the viewer to take this decision, and up to the broadcaster to offer the various services.

Philips never had the intention to force viewers to watch ads against their will and does not use this technology in any current Philips products, nor do we have any plans to do so. [Link]