Tivo works fine without analogue, it'll drive various digital tv set top boxes. (sends IR commands to change channel etc)

Your right its "cold hard business" now, but if music as an "Industry" is on its way out with any luck it'll go back to being fun again.

The United Kingdom has a law (Data Protection Act (1984)) whose main point is to prevent companies from building those sort of databases. If you hold personal data about an individual you are under a legal obligation to to allow access to that individual access to that data so that they can check it is accurate, guarentee its security and you have have a good story on the information's relavance.

Obviously, this was all put in place before the Internet so its all a bit pointless, but I guess where the BBC is coming from is that, to UK ears, googles policy of storing your search history feels contrary to the law.