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https://www.techdirt.com/2022/04/14/its-still-stupidly-ridiculously-difficult-to-buy-a-dumb-tv/
Historically, "smart" TVs aren't always particularly smart. They've routinely been shown to have lax security and privacy standards. They also routinely feature embedded OS systems that don't age well, aren't always well designed, don't perform particularly well over time, are slathered with ads, and are usually worse than most third-party game streaming devices or video game consoles.
Yet when if you go shopping for "dumb" televisions — as in just a high quality display with a bunch of HDMI ports and not much else, you're usually going to be out of luck. There are options, but guides on this front will usually shovel you toward computer monitors (too pricey at large sizes), or business-class displays (ditto).
[...] Of course it's challenging because TV manufacturers now make more money collecting and monetizing your personal data than they do selling the actual hardware. Last year Vizio noted it made $38.4 million in one quarter just from tracking and monetizing consumer viewing and usage data. It made $48.2 million on hardware (which also includes soundbars, and other products) in that same period.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 17 2022, @07:47AM
What you describe is contextual targeting, based on content, not on the person watching the content. There's nothing wrong with that. Tracking and profiling people, like tv manufacturers apparently do, is problematic.
Contextual targeting does work. In the Netherlands public broadcaster NPO on their websites switched from tracking to contextual targeting, and they saw their ad revenue increase [theregister.com].