I agree; my main concern is that at least I need to have a choice, to be able to opt-out.<p>However, if your electric company already uses smart meters, which capture your power usage at a high resolution, they can determine a lot of what goes on in your home already: They can see what machines are on or off (they have different power signatures), even what TV show you are watching (again, based on the power signature), and make good guesses about when you are home, awake&#x2F;asleep, how many people are there, etc. If you are less busy than I am at the moment, you can find reports from the Congressional Research Service, Colorado Public Utility Commission, ad IIRC MIT and the Dept of Energy detailing this (I think the CRS report references the others and is a good place to start.)