Your Smart TV Knows What You’re Watching – The Markup
themarkup.orgHere’s how to turn off “automated content recognition,” the Shazam-like software on smart TVs that tracks what you’re watching
These TVs can capture and identify 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two every second. The data is then used for content recommendations and ad targeting, which is a huge business; advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022, according to market research firm eMarketer.
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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Considering I don’t connect it to the internet I’d be surprised if it was doing anything.
It’s brute-forcing your neighbors’ WiFis
“I’m in”
Joke aside, would that make it basically anonymous? Unless it’s actually sending screenshots, it will only tell “somebody around this IP is watching TV/Something from HDMI”
That’s cool. I just use my shield
Did you read the article? It captures screenshots, doesn’t matter if you use a Shield, console or whatever.
Yes.I read it. And no I dont hook my TV to the Internet . It’s even blocked at the router level
My smart TV is blocked from the internet. It doesn’t know shit.
oh it knows. it just can’t tell anyone!
… but it isn’t able to tell anyone, as it is not connected to the Internet. Poor smart TV.
If there are any unsecured networks in your vicinity it might be telling on you without you knowing.
Pull one of your old routers from the back of closet, and use it to make a completely new network just for your TV. If you don’t connect the router to the rest of the internet, your TV is happy to connect to something, and you get to keep your privacy a little bit longer.
Not everyone has an old router. I do, but not everyone.
Why do I keep an old router?
Obviously
Honestly the least I’d expect of a smart TV.