Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You • Hacker News Board

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#41

Post by op00to » Sat, Nov 21, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #27

wildmusings wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as it can be turned off, I don't really care. My decent-quality TV was cheap and I'm sure that it would have cost more if Vizio didn't supplement their revenue with this program.

You trust the companies to leave the features disabled if you disable them? I don't. Vizio is a bad actor, here. This paragraph illustrates that quite well: "Cable TV companies and video rental companies are prohibited by law from selling information about the viewing habits of their customers. However, Vizio says that those laws - the Video Privacy Protection Act and cable subscriber protections - don’t apply to its…

So lobby your lawmaker and make it illegal, or get them to enforce laws on the books if that activity is illegal.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#42

Post by jgalt212 » Sat, Nov 21, 2015, 10:46 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #28

bsilvereagle wrote: post #2

The "fix" to this is to not let your TV connect to the internet. Instead, use a set top box that you trust to stream Netflix, etc. Mythtv or tvheadend are good solutions for live tv if you have a computer with a capture card.

No. The fix is to militate against "smart" TV makers and boycott them until they remove this malware and stop snooping as a means to gain more revenue. That is the only fix. No other fixes are trustable and verifiable at this point. The fix is, don't ever buy a smart TV. Buy the stupidest TV you possibly can. TV makers don't know anything about software and security, and they don't care at all about user privacy. So…

Yes, I can implement the fix that @bsilvereagle recommends, but consumers don't all need to be tech savy to avoid being abused. For the same reasons we have fair lending laws, we should have fair tech laws.

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#43

Post by qq66 » Sun, Nov 22, 2015, 5:51 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #29

qq66 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much safer to never give the TV network credentials.

Nope. Not safer. There are ample ways for TVs to sneak onto the internet, without credentials, and those ways are only growing with time.

What are those ways?

Re: Own a Vizio Smart TV? It’s Watching You

#44

Post by windexh8er » Mon, Nov 23, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #32

windexh8er wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the crappy things is, for example, the way LG chooses to approach this. My guess is they're just as bad as Vizio with their new "WebOS" TVs (disclosure: I own one, started reading disclaimer - they send all activity to LG proper as well). Opted out of everything thinking I won't watch any OTA or cable on the TV anyway since it's a media room panel, however I did want to use the built in Netflix / Amazon from t…

> Netflix the app on the TV needed ... agree to all ToS Was the Netflix app one of the advertised featured? Was this ToS presented[1] to you before you purchased it? If they advertised a feature but failed to deliver it in the product you paid for, then I think you deserve your money back. They failed to deliver a merchantable good, as required[2] by UCC § 2-314(2)(f). [1] "It was posted on our website" doesn't count…

> Was the Netflix app one of the advertised featured? http://www.lg.com/ca_en/tvs/lg-58UF8300-uhd-tv - It's not clear from the product landing page what's included with regards to apps. However, Netflix is installed out of the box and there doesn't appear any way to uninstall it. But, it's unusable, as stated, until it's updated. The only way to update it is to agree to the ToS.

You can see on this landing page: http://www.lg.com/us/experience-tvs/smart-tv/use

That Netflix is clearly part of the standard build (no installation required - Netflix comes with the TV out of the box, no interaction required.

Sounds like this is illegal. So what's my recourse with LG?