![]() "For years, consumers have had their behavior tracked when they're online or using their smartphones," Brookman says. The FTC has now made it clear that companies need your permission before collecting viewing data-but consumers may not understand the details, says Justin Brookman, director of privacy and technology at Consumers Union, the policy and mobilization division of Consumer Reports. The company settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $1.5 million and the state of New Jersey for $700,000. In 2017 Vizio got in trouble with federal and state regulators for collecting this kind of data without users' knowledge or consent. For instance, if you're watching a particular sports event, you could see an online advertisement from a brand interested in reaching fans of that sport. That viewing information can be combined with other consumer information and used for targeted advertising, not only on your TV but also on mobile phones and computers. Smart TVs can identify every show you watch using a technology called automatic content recognition, or ACR, which we first reported on in 2015. Internet connectivity brings a lot of appealing functionality to modern televisions-including the ability to stream content through popular apps such as Hulu and Netflix, as well as to find content quickly using voice commands.īut that functionality comes with substantial data collection. Eighty-two million of these sets have already found their way to consumers. ![]() According to market research firm IHS Markit, 69 percent of all new sets shipped in North America in 2017 were internet-capable, and the percentage is set to rise in 2018. Smart TVs represent the lion's share of new televisions. But they have to give up a lot of the TVs' functionality-and know the right buttons to click and settings to look for. The testing also found that all these TVs raised privacy concerns by collecting very detailed information on their users. The findings were part of a broad privacy and security evaluation, led by Consumer Reports, of smart TVs from top brands that also included LG, Sony, and Vizio. (These vulnerabilities would not allow a hacker to spy on the user or steal information.) This could be done over the web, from thousands of miles away. We found that a relatively unsophisticated hacker could change channels, play offensive content, or crank up the volume, which might be deeply unsettling to someone who didn't understand what was happening. The problems affect Samsung televisions, along with models made by TCL and other brands that use the Roku TV smart-TV platform, as well as streaming devices such as the Roku Ultra. This entry was posted in How To on Jby Help Answer.Consumer Reports has found that millions of smart TVs can be controlled by hackers exploiting easy-to-find security flaws. Then breathe a sigh of relief that you’ve finally got rid of an unwanted app. Select that and confirm if it asks (even though it never bothered to ask you if you wanted to have the option to install Samba in the first place.) What you actually have to do is pretend that you want to install Samba rather than growl at the TV for not giving you a “go away and never darken my doorstep again” option.Ĭlick through the various options and you’ll eventually get to a page where you’re asked to agree to the privacy and other settings.Īt this stage, there’s a menu option that says “Disagree and disable”. Not very user friendly and the only way to remove it is counter-intuitive: With no obvious “never” answer even though you didn’t ask to install the app. ![]() In a recent update of their Android software, Sony decided that it would be a good idea to add Samba TV and to nag you every time you turned the television on if you didn’t click the “install” button. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |