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from the watching-big-brother-watching-you dept.
Have a Vizio smart TV? You'll probably want to read this article over at net-security.org then:
Owners of Smart TVs manufactured by California-based consumer electronics company Vizio should be aware that their viewing habits are being tracked and that information sold to third parties ("partners").
And, what's more, with a recent change of the company's privacy policy, the company has started providing this data to companies that "may combine this information with other information about devices associated with that IP address."
"Beginning October 31, 2015, VIZIO will use Viewing Data together with your IP address and other Non-Personal Information in order to inform third party selection and delivery of targeted and re-targeted advertisements. These advertisements may be delivered to smartphones, tablets, PCs or other internet-connected devices that share an IP address or other identifier with your Smart TV," the privacy policy says.
Vizio's competitors Samsung and LG Electronics can also track users' viewing habits via their smart TV offerings, ProPublica's Julia Angwin pointed out, but the feature has to be explicitly turned on by the users.
Yep, glad I do all my TV watching on a computer monitor.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @06:12AM
I just need a nice big flat screen with a decent selection of inputs. Can I please have that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @11:17AM
It's called a "monitor".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:54PM
...and at a reasonable price, with RCA inputs because some of us still have good equipment that doesn't do HDMIxyz... now get off my digital lawn! :-)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 11 2015, @01:05PM
Isn't that what a smart TV is?
My MiL bought a smart TV about 2 or 3 years ago, comically she doesn't even have internet, or even a "deal" with a neighbor, but it was the usual "Oh I like the color of the bezel vs my interior decorating so I'll buy that one" and whatever that one has is what she got. Because smartness or dumbness of the TV wasn't an issue, it was the built in stand and bezel that sold it. This is how the general public buys TVs BTW.
Anyway its got a field of HDMI inputs and RCA jacks just like a real (non-smart) TV.
Maybe new smart TVs try to silo themselves by not providing any external connections, only their shitty service. You'd think people would squack about not being able to connect to the cable box or the xbox or whatever, though.
As a comical side issue, smart TVs have incredibly slow and hard to use UIs, so just using her TV is a PITA, and even my dumb TV has such as slow and painful UI that I leave it on HDMI1 input and have an external mechanical switchbox because I can switch from my mythtv box to the kids wii in a fraction of a second vs the software switched HDMI inputs on the TV which even on my dumb TV take like 15 seconds to switch.