from the "it-always-feels-like-somebody's-watching-me" dept.
https://www.ft.com/content/23ab2f68-d957-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17
The smart TVs in our homes are leaking sensitive user data to companies including Netflix, Google and Facebook even when some devices are idle, according to two large-scale analyses. The data were being sent whether or not the user had a Netflix account. The researchers also found that other smart devices including speakers and cameras were sending user data to dozens of third parties including Spotify and Microsoft.
The findings are likely to heighten concerns about the privacy of user data on the internet just as smart devices, including televisions, are flooding homes.
In a separate study of smart TVs by Princeton University, researchers found that some apps supported by Roku and FireTV were sending data such as specific user identifiers to third parties including Google.
Roughly 68 per cent of US households had a connected TV device, including external hardware such as Roku and Apple TV, at the end of 2018, according to a Nielsen report from March. Tens of millions of these devices use content recognition technology that tracks everything you watch, to be able to target you better with TV advertising, which now accounts for about half of all digital ads.
The Northeastern University study, conducted on 81 different devices, both in the UK and the US, is the largest published experiment of its kind, and found “notable cases of information exposure”. Amazon, Google, Akamai and Microsoft were the most frequently contacted companies, partly because these companies provide cloud and networking services for smart devices to operate on, the researchers said.
[...] By analysing network traffic, the Northeastern team concluded that third parties receive, at the very least, information about the device people are using, their locations, and possibly even when they are interacting with it. “So they might know when you’re home and when you’re not,” said Professor Choffnes.
Because much of the data being sent out by device manufacturers was encrypted, the academics were not aware of exactly what additional data were being transmitted. “They can definitely see some [viewing] is taking place, but what they can exactly see depends on what the manufacturer is sending, which we have not made an attempt to re-engineer,” said Hamed Haddadi, computer scientist at Imperial College and another paper author.
-- submitted from IRC
Related Stories
If you're looking to buy a TV in 2025, you may be disappointed by the types of advancements TV brands will be prioritizing in the new year. While there's an audience of enthusiasts interested in developments in tech like OLED, QDEL, and [Micro LED], plus other features like transparency and improved audio, that doesn't appear to be what the industry is focused on.
Today's TV selection has a serious dependency on advertisements and user tracking.
[...] One of the most impactful changes to the TV market next year will be Walmart owning Vizio. For Walmart, the deal, which closed on December 3 for approximately $2.3 billion, is about owning the data collection capabilities of Vizio's SmartCast OS.
[...] In 2025, buying a Vizio TV won't just mean buying a TV from a company that's essentially an ad business. It will mean fueling Walmart's ad business. With Walmart also owning Onn and Amazon owning Fire TVs, that means there's one less TV brand that isn't a cog in a retail giant's ever-expanding ad machine.
[...] Further, Walmart has expressed a goal of becoming one of the 10 biggest ad companies, with the ad business notably having higher margins than groceries. It could use Vizio, via more plentiful and/or intrusive ads, to fuel those goals.
And Walmart's TV market share is set to grow in the new year. Paul Gray, research director of consumer electronics and devices at Omdia, told Ars Technica he expects that "the new combined sales (Vizio plus Walmart's white label) will be bigger than the current market leader Samsung."
[...] 'Walmart has told you by buying Vizio that these large retailers need a connected television advertising platform to tie purchases to," Martin told Bloomberg. "That means Target and other large retailers have that reason to buy Roku to tie Roku's connected television ad units to their sales in their retail stores. And by the way, Roku has much higher margins than any retailer.'"
[...] TV brands have become so dependent on ads that some are selling TVs at a loss to push ads. How did we get to the point where TV brands view their hardware as a way to track and sell to viewers? Part of the reason TV OSes are pushing the limits on ads is that many viewers seem willing to accept them, especially in the name of saving money.
[...]Still, analysts agree that even among more expensive TV brands, there has been a shift toward building out ad businesses and OSes over improving hardware features like audio.
"This is a low-margin business, and even in the premium segment, the revenues from ads and data are significant. Also, the sort of consumer who buys a premium TV is likely to be especially interesting to advertisers," Gray said.
[...] In 2025, TVs will continue focusing innovation around software, which has immediate returns via ad sales compared to new hardware, which can take years to develop and catch on with shoppers. For some, this is creating a strong demand for dumb TVs, but unfortunately, there are no immediate signs of that becoming a trend.
As Horner put it, "This is an advertising/e-commerce-driven market, not a consumer-driven market. TV content is just the bait in the trap."
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Thursday September 19 2019, @12:05AM (4 children)
I remember a world where this sort of thing didn't used to happen. Can we have it back now please?
Welcome to Edgeways. Words should apply in advance as spaces are highly limite—
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 19 2019, @12:30AM (1 child)
Yes, but only if you can convince people to stop buying every new shiny that is offered to them.
The "smart" part of "smart TV" doesn't have anything to do with features that the consumer might use. That "smart" describes the methods of datamining that the manufacturer offers to government and big industry.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Funny) by jb on Thursday September 19 2019, @06:07AM
No, you've got the wrong meaning of "smart" altogether.
They're called "smart" devices because using any one of them always smarts, just like getting punched in the face.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:57AM (1 child)
Yes. But it starts by not buying smart TVs.
And, this does NOT mean buying a smart TV and not hooking it up to a network.
It means only buying a TV that is just a TV, with no smarts at all.
And if you [proverbial you] go into a store and they have no non-smart TV's, then buy no TV at all. Even better, tell the commissioned sales drone that you are not buying because there are no non-smart TV's, then actually walk out without buying.
A very short time after TV sales drop to zero, you will suddenly see non-smart TV's reappearing rapidly.
But as long as you buy one, the manufacturers and sellers think that is what you want. The only way to get non-smart TV's back is to drop TV sales to zero. About 2-3 weeks later, you will suddenly see non-smart TV's reappearing on the store shelves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:32AM
If a widespread consumer movement like that ever happens, I suspect there'll just be a rebranding exercise. "Smart" will become a dirty word, replaced with some other label. The requirement for wifi connectivity will be downplayed and perhaps the devices will ship with inbuilt SIM cards instead and slurp over the mobile networks (for free, of course). Or they'll silently build their own ad-hoc wifi networks with neighboring devices to phone home that way. So I suppose the backlash needs to be much more persistant and probably involve regulation as well to succeed.
Welcome to Edgeways. Words should apply in advance as spaces are highly limite—
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Thursday September 19 2019, @01:11AM (2 children)
the set top box that came from the ISP could be a cryptomining device, considering the bandwidth it uses when it is on standby (you can't turn these devices off, ever, without unplugging them.. which resets everything, and adds 30 minutes to start-up.)
I always assume these devices send all usage stats to everyone - safer that way.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:16AM (1 child)
In the modern world of cord cutting, who still has a set top box from a cable company or ISP?
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:48AM
others sharing the abode usually watch netflix, but when they want to watch anything on a hard drive, the STB is used, as the TV doesn't recognize either of the hard drives, and the navigation on the stb is 'known' (not 'easy', just 'known')... also, I haven't finished turning and old Pi into a kodi box... (amongst 1,000 other projects and jobs..)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @01:14AM
By using this TV set you accept the terms and conditions that will enable the provider of the software to spy the shit out of you.
---The Too Smart TV Inc.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @04:01AM
Oh. My. God. I can't believe this is happening. They are such fine liberal companies obviously corrupted by TRUMP! Impeach the fake maternal figure already.
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:02AM (2 children)
Got a new Toshiba LCD TV 50U6863DB only to find it will not take my WiFi password.
Expected to have to take it back to the store as it could not complete its setup, but eventually it just gave up complaining, continued and now works as a dumb TV with a Roku box attached.
There is no helpline and since Toshiba PC has become Dynabook, support is almost impossible to find.
I have over 40 devices (kids, friends, family, legacy etc) that have no problem with the complex password and only a really old Humax DVR that has the same problem.
When I contacted Humax, years ago, they just said I should change the password. So I looked into it and all the technical docs around password characters are "should" there are no hard and fast rules every manufacturer must follow to be WiFi compliant :(
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:14AM
Just keep your own box hooked up, like Roku, or better yet a Raspberry Pi or other SBC. That should give you more control over it anyway.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @11:00AM
Pray tell, what characters do you include in your password? This sounds like a feature I want!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:52AM (1 child)
idiots can't perform a MITM attack to find out what's transmitted, news at 11.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @02:28PM
It says the data is encrypted or encoded at the least, numbnuts!