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Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

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Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#481

Post by paulie_a »

mrbonner wrote: post #66
throw03172019 wrote: post #36

I disabled WiFi on my Samsung TV after they were injecting ads into the home screen. Spend $800 to get ads served in their shitty/slow UI.

My Samsung SmartTV randomly turns on itself. Sometimes, we can't turn it on and I have to remove the batteris from the remote, plug them back then it works. The UI is sooo sluggish. I just wish they make a dump TV with superior image quality and let the other streaming devices handling the "smart" features. I will not buy another Samsung electronic product.

Samsung has a habit of making awesome hardware then shitting all over it with their subpar software.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#482

Post by JohnFen »

Yizahi wrote: post #416
sjwright wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, yes. Because respecting my privacy fits their business model. Consider that even the most trivial thing that makes Apple look bad gets leaked. If Apple was selling your private information, it would have leaked long before now. Also their financial reports show no indication of revenues that could be associated with private information marketing.

Nobody sells data, like pay and get hdd with data. They "analyze" it and sell results, or "allow access" for "optimization" of whatever. Or they have "partnership" and "exchange". Or they slightly obscure data (of course insufficiently) and then sell whatever resulted claiming that they don't sell "data". And so on, whole departments work full time on the ways to bullshit regulatory authorities into thinking that the…

> Nobody sells data, like pay and get hdd with data. They "analyze" it and sell results, or "allow access" for "optimization" of whatever.

Yes, I think most people understand this and say "selling data" as shorthand (because, for a lot of people, it's a distinction without a difference).

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#483

Post by chrisBob »

sjwright wrote: post #220
move-on-by wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any way to turn it off? Or perhaps block a specific domain via pihole?

Don’t let your TV access the internet at all. Smart TV interfaces are almost uniformly worse than set top boxes (one or more of: bad UI, slow CPU, weird quirks, few updates) so you should avoid it anyway. The current Apple TV (which I cite only because of familiarity) has a great UI, every major app, and robust HDMI-CEC support so you might never have to touch your TV’s remote again. And Apple respects your privacy.

I have a TCL TV and use my Apple TV exclusively.

I was actually really pissed a while back because my in-laws were over and when I came home they told me "For some reason you hadn't connected your TV to the internet. We gave it your wifi password, and now it works!" Thanks. Now I have to change wifi passwords, and the power light on the TV constantly blinks because it thinks it should be connected to the internet, but isn't.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#484

Post by JohnFen »

dontbenebby wrote: post #246
mikeryan wrote: post #50

This is a pretty open secret within the industry. Geographic data can be provided via setup (a lot of TV's ask for a zip code on setup) or usually simply via GeoIP lookup. Dig a bit deeper and you get into service provided by Samba TV and or Inscape and you can find that they're sending back frames of video in a lot of cases to track what you're watching. This data is becoming a huge mechanism for subsidizing TV sale…

>This data is becoming a huge mechanism for subsidizing TV sales and the interactivity is being looked at as a huge opportunity to recoup some of the ad spend being lost via streaming and fewer 30 second spots So what are the options for a consumer willing to pay for privacy? Will console manufacturers be more respectful for example? (I've considered a console to serve as a bluray player / host OS for streaming apps…

> So what are the options for a consumer willing to pay for privacy?

Don't buy a TV at all. Instead, buy a large monitor and hook it up to a computer to act as a media center.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#485

Post by Crespyl »

bradstewart wrote: post #466
driverdan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same thing happen. I rooted my Kindle and kept it in flight mode to avoid tracking and updates. After not using it for months I recharged it and when I turned it on it had auto updated to the latest version, killing root. So not only did mine exit flight mode it somehow re-enabled updates and updated itself.

Not sure about Kindles, but with the super cheap Fire Tablets, Amazon basically tells you "this device is subsidized by ads". You can pay a small fee ($15 IIRC) to remove them permanently.

Unless you do pay the fee, and then somehow the device still keeps resetting itself to the advertisement mode.

I just use a Kobo now.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#486

Post by sp332 »

milofeynman wrote: post #254
Godel_unicode wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an extra SSID which has no internet access and logs all of the things for exactly this reason.

What's the simple setup for something like this?

Lots of consumer routers these days let you set parental controls. Disable access entirely, or put time limits on it, then remove all the allowed times.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#487

Post by squeaky-clean »

sharkweek wrote: post #296
flukus wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much do they make per user? I would have have thought it was in the $10-$20 range and not enough to trigger any price sensitivity. I'm a tightass with an aldi TV but wouldn't have cared if it cost $10 more.

Not entirely related, but I remember thinking when Hulu was talking about an ad-free version of their streaming library that “this will clearly cost a lot more per month because my eyeballs are worth A LOT!!” Imagine my surprise when it turned out only being $4 a month to remove commercials. It almost hurts my feelings knowing how little I’m worth to advertisers...

It's not only about allowing customers to pay for their share of ad revenue in order to remove it the ads. But to also enter new markets of customers.

For example I would never subscribe to a service with ads, regardless of price. The Hulu tier that includes ads would have to pay me about $30/mo before I would consider switching from the ad free tier.

The number might be unrelated to ad revenue at all and they figured that was the perfect threshold between capturing the highest number of "cheaper" subscribers while also maximizing new ad-free subscribers.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#488

Post by cm2187 »

TheHegemon wrote: post #480
rsync wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sonos needs to be called out for the dramatic disparity between how they present their products and what those products actually do. Their userbase is almost universally clueless as to what it is these devices are doing and what the goals of Sonos, as a company, must be. They should have been one of the good ones - and I had such enthusiasm for their products - but they have proven to be very, very antagonistic towar…

Wait, what is Sonos doing that am I missing?

Force you to register and login or they brick your device. Stuff a recording device connecting to amazon in what should otherwise be a speaker.

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#489

Post by codedokode »

xcgfhgjbjhb wrote: post #193
obmelvin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roku enabled TVs very clearly send back frames of what you are watching. I've been watching YouTube casted via chromecast plugged into HDMI (NOT the built in chromecast, I have verified multiple times) and the Roku will give me a full width toast saying to press `*` to watch the full movie or some similar contextual option I was pretty put off the first time this happened. That said, I don't even know if I looked thr…

I worked on that. It sends audio and/or video fingerprints (not frames, for privacy and bandwidth reasons), which are matched against a fingerprint database. Whatever people see on TV is usually 10 to 60 seconds behind the real live stream at the broadcaster (which is where the reference fingerprinting happens). GeoIP data can be used to roughly deduce where the TV is located, in order to better filter out false posi…

Did you ask user's permission for fingerprinting?

Re: Smart TVs sending sensitive user data to Netflix and Facebook

#490

Post by Crespyl »

distances wrote: post #374
ComodoHacker wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No channel controls? TV automatically switches to a whoever has made a better deal with the manufacturer?

That sounds like a traditional "smart" feature to me. Dumb could be a manual selection of HDMI input without scanning for the signal.

I have a pretty dumb TV with no apps or internet features, but I'll admit that the one "smart-ish" feature I do kind of appreciate is support for CEC controls over HDMI.

It makes it a bit more convenient to switch between my Roku/Switch/PC when I can push a button on the remote to have the devices ping the TV themselves.

I do prefer a dumb TV, but it doesn't have to be completely brainless.

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