Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes
Smart TVs are like “a digital Trojan Horse” in people’s homes
48-page report citing Ars Technica urges FTC, FCC investigate connected TV data harvesting. Gen AI, potentially racially discrimniatory practices head concerns.
48-page report urges FTC, FCC to investigate connected TV industry data harvesting.
The companies behind the streaming industry, including smart TV and streaming stick manufacturers and streaming service providers, have developed a "surveillance system" that has "long undermined privacy and consumer protection," according to a report from the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) published today and sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Unprecedented tracking techniques aimed at pleasing advertisers have resulted in connected TVs (CTVs) being a "privacy nightmare," according to Jeffrey Chester, report co-author and CDD executive director, resulting in calls for stronger regulation.
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I'm honestly surprised there isn't some successful startup that markets itself as the "dumb TV company" by now. You can buy dumb TVs if you go out of your way to look, but if you knew there was the FutureCo DumbTV Plus or whatever out there and you didn't have to do a bunch of searching...
Because selling the data your SmartTV collects, is a massive revenue stream for these companies. Selling only dumb TVs wouldn't be as profitable as a SmartTV would be.
Also the ad space that could be projected to these, based on collected data is another massive revenue stream.
I've honestly looked for dumb TV's for a while. My TCL Roku TV has gotten so slow it's almost unusable. If I could find a good one I would probably buy one. Instead I got a Raspberry Pi and put Kodi on it. Paired with a Flirc remote, it works great.
Buy a commercial tv.