These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.
A TV that is not connected to the internet is effectively just a large monitor.
I understand that some TVs lock functionality and coerce you into connecting it to the network, but most of them function well as monitors. I know it’s tempting to make use of the “smart” features since it’s included, but if you care about privacy, it’s better to keep it off the internet.
So… Can someone explain how this is legal if you’re watching DRM content? Capturing and uploading copyrighted, protected content doesn’t seem very kosher.
advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads
Jesus. Spend a fraction of that developing good products that people will actually want to buy so you can end this unethical, scumbag way of making a buck.
Who cares? Ad targeting has been around for years, ads on TV aren’t any different than what’s on YouTube anymore, they’re often literally the same ad. I don’t need drugs, I don’t need cars and I don’t need insurance so whatever
You do know what community you’re posting in right?
This type of snooping covers anything you play on the screen including but not limited to Blu-Rays, Plex, Home Movies, Live TV, YouTube, and Netflix. It’s incredibly invasive and harmful to the end user, especially when the raw data is inevitably leaked to the world at large.
genuine question: is it still considered ‘smart’ if its fully offline? what can it do that a ‘normal’ tv cant? can it connect to a local media server or something?
Good. Have fun uploading any information about me without wifi or an ethernet cable. Smart TVs were a mistake, even the most expensive ones are slow and trash.
Couldn’t you use a raspberry pi or something? My point was that a $50 android tv box beats the absolute top TVs both in terms of speed and compatibility with apps.
I dont need them for the smart, I need their menus to be consistently fast for automation. Response time for input changes, menus disappearing timely after boot.
When we buy $300 50" ‘specials’ and I start pumping IR at them for timed remote automation they always get hung up and start missing steps.
Doesn’t mention what circumstances it’s tracking your watching habits. If you’re watching an obscure movie on DVD, is it still looking at frames? Does it have to be through a streaming service being run on the TV? Does it recognize content being run on modern game consoles? Not a very informative article.
First, a quick primer on the tech: ACR identifies what’s displayed on your television, including content served through a cable TV box, streaming service, or game console, by continuously grabbing screenshots and comparing them to a massive database of media and advertisements. Think of it as a Shazam-like service constantly running in the background while your TV is on.
All of this is in the second paragraph of the article.
Joke aside, would that make it basically anonymous? Unless it’s actually sending screenshots, it will only tell “somebody around this IP is watching TV/Something from HDMI”
What personally identification information is there? Sure, they can know everything is from the same user/household, but they can’t know it’s you by name, email, phone, address… That’s what I mean by anonymous instead of private
I guess it is somewhat like paying in cash for your groceries: While anonymous, only you buy at this time of the day your favourite 3 food products, a cup of gluten-free instant ramen and a period product.
I would be concerned about this scenario:
Company X has your TV data (but doesn’t know your name, etc)
Company Y, Z, … know your name and have data on you.
They buy/share/whatever data and intersect it. Now they can probably connect the data they have on you.
You joke… but isn’t that what Amazon Sidewalk was invented for? And isn’t it sort of what AirTags do? They don’t connect to the internet… they connect to partner devices in ways that are unseen by the owners to co-opt their internet access.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Samsung TVs without internet access are using nearby Samsung phones to connect to the internet. Or maybe they partner with the ISP to use those default guest wifi networks. If news broke tomorrow that this was already a thing, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.
It’s extremely difficult to find a dumb tv in sizes larger than ~55”. You really don’t have much choice at the moment. I personally host a jellyfin server and play that via apple tv over hdmi, but content recognition still does its thing. Best i could do was deny wifi/ethernet to the tv and have no open networks.
It’s extremely difficult to find a dumb tv in sizes larger than ~55”.
Even then, it’s a chore. Last time I went shopping (5 years ago) it took me two months to find a 40" TV of a good brand and quality that wasn’t a smart model.
NextDNS has a blocklist you can enable to block telemetry for Roku TVs FYI. You can also get a dumb TV or keep your TV offline and have a separate Kodi box for your shows.
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