"Whereas I fall into the "I could, but why should I?" category"Same here.
I've three Samsung TVs of various age none of which has been connected to the internet (in fact, only one has that capability). Knowing what I know now I would never
connect a Samsung TV to the internet - in fact I'd never buy another Samsung TV set, phone or other appliance again.
The people behind Samsung who authorized the spying as well as those who've attempted to fool testers into believing the specs are better than they actually are have shit ethics - there's no other way of putting it more politely (as this is a public forum, I've toned down my language considerably).
I've been around in tech and engineering quite some time and I am alarmed at how the ethics of engineering people have waned over recent decades. In recent decades, we've regularly seen unethical engineering practices introduced into products in ways that in the past would never have even been considered let alone that would have ever made their way to market. Samsung is not alone, remember the Volkswagen fiasco; now it's commonplace - Microsoft et al.
In this laissez faire environment sans ethics it seems that almost any behavior is acceptable. I often wonder why those in my profession who are responsible for the introduction of such products no longer object to designing them in unethical ways. (If engineers objected on mass to such practices, management would have difficulties enforcing such policies.)
As I see it, two approaches are needed: the first is the need for proper legislation that would outlaw such practices with the aim of protecting consumers, and the second is publicly exposing those who are responsible for them (legislation should ensure violators cannot hide behind a corporate façade). Engineers would object to designing unethical products if they knew their names were associated with them and that they were being held responsible.
Moreover, professional bodies such as ACM and IEEE, etc. should be proactive in this by expelling members found guilty of unethical practices associated with their profession. This would go a long way to stopping such practices, I reckon.
Incidentally, for some decades I was a member of both the IEEE and
ACM and I withdrew from their membership because they failed to uphold their own ethics. Especially the IEEE, it rarely, if ever, questioned unethical and questionable engineering practices. It seems to me these organizations should be embarrassed into actively doing something to stop the slide in ethics amongst their members.
I'm also of the opinion that we need some deep research into exactly what has happened to the engineering ethos over past decades. Laws and sanctions as mentioned above may provide a partial solution but finding the underlying cause and rectifying it is clearly the ideal one.