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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday September 29 2019, @03:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the who-watches-the-watchers? dept.

https://tv-watches-you.princeton.edu/tv-tracking-acm-ccs19.pdf

Abstract:

The number of Internet-connected TV devices has grown significantly in recent years, especially Over-the-Top ("OTT") streaming devices, such as Roku TV and Amazon Fire TV. OTT devices offer an alternative to multi-channel television subscription services,and are often monetized through behavioral advertising. To shed light on the privacy practices of such platforms, we developed a system that can automatically download OTT apps (also known as channels), and interact with them while intercepting the network traffic and performing best-effort TLS interception. We used this smart crawler to visit more than 2,000 channels on two popular OTT platforms, namely Roku and Amazon Fire TV. Our results show that tracking is pervasive on both OTT platforms, with traffic to known trackers present on 69% of Roku channels and 89% of Amazon Fire TV channels. We also discover widespread practice of collecting and transmitting unique identifiers, such as device IDs,serial numbers, WiFi MAC addresses and SSIDs, at times over un-encrypted connections. Finally, we show that the countermeasures available on these devices, such as limiting ad tracking options and adblocking, are practically ineffective. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for researchers, regulators, policy makers,and platform/app developers.


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:05PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:05PM (#900352)

    Let Ted out of jail.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:11PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:11PM (#900359)

    Ted Bundy, do you mean? I think he died.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:30PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:30PM (#900373)

      Ted Turner.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:47PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @04:47PM (#900391)

        Ted Danson.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:29PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:29PM (#900414)

          Just Ted. You know, the animated bear.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:47PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @05:47PM (#900420)

            Ted "Theodore" Logan.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @06:10PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 29 2019, @06:10PM (#900446)

              TED Talks.

              • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday September 30 2019, @04:15PM

                by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 30 2019, @04:15PM (#900835) Journal

                Vulcan teddy bears have six inch fangs.

                --
                People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.