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Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch
- 0cf8612b2e1e 10mo ago[flagged]
- doctor_radium 10mo agoI was going to say, "at last, something good out of Texas". Maybe you're on to something?
- dogemaster2032 10mo ago[flagged]
- LordGrey 10mo agoHe probably already got one, from Vizio, for leaving them out of the lawsuits.
- davsti4 10mo agoWalmart owns Vizio. Vizio buys components from other manufacturers and has assembly performed overseas. Not sure where the software comes from, but likely one of those suppliers.
- yalogin 10mo agoI was going to say the same thing. I am really surprised to see Texas did this. I will now follow this keenly to see the resolution
- themafia 10mo ago> I am really surprised to see Texas did this. I think this comes from strictly looking at the world in left/right terms. Texas is a pretty libertarian state. This is probably the entire reason the founders ensconced the states into the union the way they did. This country is a _spectrum_ of ideas. It's not bipolar. Only the moneyed interests behind political parties want you to think this way.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo agoI wouldn’t call Texas libertarian. They have the most restrictive abortion rights, They tried to fire teachers who spoke bad about a racist podcaster https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/15/texas-education-teacher-comments-charlie-kirk/ https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/15/texas-education-teac... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk... Weed is still illegal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_Texas You can’t sell liquor on Sunday https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Texas There is a state law restricting what can be discussed in public schools https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/02/texas-public-schools-dei-lgbtq-ban/ https://www.texastribune.org/2025/12/02/texas-public-schools... And he is pushing for schools to post the 10 commandments https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-instructs-texas-schools-display-ten-commandments-accordance-texas-law https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-...
- themafia 10mo agoI guess I just don't understand people who face what should be welcome political surprise with extreme and hyperbolic negativity. It's a feature of this forum which honestly bothers me. It's entirely unproductive and strikes me as a bad faith effort to avoid giving credit to "the other side" even when they're enacting a policy which benefits us all.
- raw_anon_1111 10mo agoThe comment I replied to said Texas has a liberterian streak. There is nothing libertarian about denying free speech, putting religion up in schools, not selling alcohol because of religion, etc. But if someone want to praise a state that goes out of its way to tell other people how to live because of religion and say they are “libertarian” because they sue a TV manufacturer, I don’t think that tips the scales
- yalogin 10mo ago
- zephyreon 10mo agoPerhaps the one thing Ken Paxton and I agree on.
- otterley 10mo agoA broken clock is right twice a day!
- buellerbueller 10mo agoIt is an important observation, and a reminder: evaluate positions on their merits, and not who is taking the position.
- deathanatos 10mo agoWhile I agree (and I agree with the upstream comments, too), there's often deeper reasons why we can short circuit fully evaluating an argument made on its merits: often the "merits", or lack thereof, are derived from the party's values and beliefs, and if we know those values to be corrupt, it's likely that subsequent arguments are going to be similarly corrupt. There's only so much time in the day, only so much life to live. Could a blog post written by the worst person you know have a good point, even though it's titled something like "An argument in favor of kicking puppies" by Satan himself? I mean, true, I haven't read it, yet. There could be a sound, logical argument buried within. This is also what "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" teaches, essentially. Trust is hard-won, and easily squandered. "A lie is around the world before the truth has finished tying its shoes." "Flood the Zone" is why some of us are so exhausted, though. In these instances, the argument has to come from someone who is self-aware enough of the short-circuit to say "okay, look, I am going to address that elephant" — but mostly, that's not what happens. Thankfully in this case, all we need get through is the title.
- buellerbueller 10mo agoI don't care about people's values, unless I am evaluating them; that's their own business, and I am not the value police or thought police. Goodness knows there are people (hi, mom!) who are appalled by some of my values. Roman Polanski and Woody Allen: terrible humans, but they have still made some of the best films that exist.
- duxup 10mo agoI wish my Apple TV could take multiple pass through inputs. From there I could pick an app or input on the Apple TV and then I'm good. That's all I want, nothing these TVs try to provide I want, quite the opposite. I loathe ending up on the TV menu...
- smileybarry 10mo agoThat still doesn't escape ACR, AFAIK. These "smart" TVs still capture screenshots from HDMI inputs. That's one of the reasons I only buy Sony for years now. ACR & the like are opt-out at the first terms/privacy screen, and you can even go into Android/Google TV settings and just disable the APK responsible. (Samba something-something)
- danudey 10mo agoI googled how to disable ACR on my new Samsung TV. Followed the instructions only to find out that it was disabled already. That, combined with a built-in physical microphone switch (which I noticed in the quick start guide before I'd even attached the wall mount) made me quite impressed with Samsung off the bat. It does have some weird behaviors, though, like occasionally letting me know it has some kind of AI features or something, or bringing up a pop-up on the screen letting my kid know how to use the volume control on the remote every time he uses the volume control on the remote for the first time since power-on. Still, a pretty decent TV nonetheless.
- drnick1 10mo agoIt's better not to connect the TV to the Internet at all. This will solve most of your problems. Use a Linux HTPC to stream content (not an Apple box, they collect telemetry and profile users like others).
- aidenn0 10mo agoWhat's your HTPC setup? I used Kodi for a while, but gave up on it as unsuitable as a frontend for netflix et. al.
- ChrisArchitect 10mo agohttps://archive.ph/3MRXv https://archive.ph/3MRXv
- c420 10mo ago"The TVs “are effectively Chinese-sponsored surveillance devices, recording the viewing habits of Texans at every turn without their knowledge or consent,” the lawsuits said." This explains why Vizio, who is owned by Walmart, was not sued.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- smileybarry 10mo agoAnd of course: casual reminder that Vizio does extensive ACR and ad targeting, and even bought a company doing it to facilitate that: > In August 2015, Vizio acquired Cognitive Media Networks, Inc, a provider of automatic content recognition (ACR). Cognitive Media Networks was subsequently renamed Inscape Data. Inscape functioned as an independent entity until the end of 2020, when it was combined with Vizio Ads and SmartCast; the three divisions combining to operate as a single unit.[1] But I'm sure Texans are fully aware and consented to this, right? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio
- wkat4242 10mo agoSo.. if it was American companies doing the spying it would be a different story?
- jvanderbot 10mo agoNot according to the law. Speeches are not the law.
- ToucanLoucan 10mo agoYeah pretty much. No regulators are batting an eye at the industrial data gathering schemes of Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. and they never have. And the only major social network under real legal scrutiny is TikTok. The American Government wants to have the cake and eat it too, as per usual. They want to leave the massive column of the economy that is surveillance capitalism intact and operating, and making them money, and they want to make sure those scary communists can't do the same. Unfortunately there isn't really a way to take down one without taking down the other, unless you legally enshrine that only American corporations have a right to spy on Americans. And (at time of comment anyway) they seem to not want to openly say the reason is just naked nationalism/racism.
- labrador 10mo ago[flagged]
- Dig1t 10mo agoIt’s impossible to offer any differing opinions or discussion on the differences between the smart TV thing and your whataboutism without triggering a flame war and being downvoted to oblivion. What does this have to do at all with the posted article about smart TV’s?
- labrador 10mo agoYou're right, it's not a productive comment and I would delete it if I could. I don't like how Texas Republicans operate but that's another topic.
- kelseyfrog 10mo agoPro plaintif not only because of privacy concerns, but if it raises the cost of televisions by introducing a production inefficiency, it is one step against the Baumol Effect.
- jeffbee 10mo agoImagine looking around in the year 2025 and concluding that TV prices are high.
- xnx 10mo agoIt blew my mind when TVs started being cheaper than windows per square inch.
- MandieD 10mo agoI'd never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right, particularly in Germany, by a factor of at least 3-4. 50-55" mid-range TV: plenty under 400 EUR. Double-glazed window about that size, custom-made (because just about all windows in Germany are custom-made): 1200 EUR, and that was about six years ago - I shudder to think what it would be now.
- xnx 10mo agoSimilar to when solar panels became cheaper than fencing.
- sidewndr46 10mo agoWhen you consider the differing regulation and applications, it makes a great deal of sense. Just making a window in the US can cost less than $10 if you hand assemble it. Making a window that conforms to all building regulations in your particular area is a huge undertaking that involves highly specialized equipment.
- smileybarry 10mo ago"All of the big TV makers" except Vizio which is owned by Walmart, of course, who happens to do ACR and ad targeting: > In August 2015, Vizio acquired Cognitive Media Networks, Inc, a provider of automatic content recognition (ACR). Cognitive Media Networks was subsequently renamed Inscape Data. Inscape functioned as an independent entity until the end of 2020, when it was combined with Vizio Ads and SmartCast; the three divisions combining to operate as a single unit.[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio
- babypuncher 10mo agoWell it wouldn't be Texas if there wasn't some grotesque corruption involved. Vizio is the absolute worst of the TV manufacturers when it comes to this shit, so now it's clear Texas is really just trying to bully Walmart's competition rather than do something positive for consumers.
- sailfast 10mo agoThat does tell me why Paxton brought this suit. Either that or somebody is trying to blackmail him over something he watched.
- ch2026 10mo ago[flagged]
- itopaloglu83 10mo agoIsn’t that also we got only consumer protection law we have? Somebody leaked the video rental history of a senator etc.
- estimator7292 10mo agoSure but won't this case set precedent that all manufacturers are bound to by law? If this case succeeds, suing Visio on the same charges would be a cakewalk.
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- reallyhuh 10mo ago[flagged]
- dang 10mo agoOk, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
- hulitu 10mo ago> "This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries." But, but, but, you agreed to the TOS didn't you, or else you cannot use your TV.
- davsti4 10mo agoSo you buy a big TV, unbox it, and disagree to the TOS. Can it still be used through one of its HDMI ports?
- topspin 10mo agoI have a cheap samsung from 5 years ago that pops up a dialog when it boots. I've never read it or agreed to it. It goes away after about 5 seconds. After that I stream using HDMI and all is well. It's also never been connected to a network. Can't say what other TVs do, but this one works fine without TOS etc. If there is some feature or other that doesn't work due to this, I can say I've never missed it.
- aerostable_slug 10mo agoAs far as I can tell, I'm doing that right now with a new higher-end Samsung television. The installer showed me how to make it boot directly to the active HDMI source and skip the Samsung smart hub. The TV has never been online and I don't see any reason to change that — what possible improvement could a firmware update bring? I don't use any of the television's software-enabled features.
- ortusdux 10mo agoI just want a somewhat trustworthy organization to develop a "DUMB" certification. I would pay extra for a DUMB TV. I like the suggested "Don't Upload My Bits" backronym.
- ge96 10mo agoThey say you can just get a large PC monitor, for me it's the ads that would drive me nuts
- clhodapp 10mo agoI would agree if they would sell them over 55 inches with the latest panel technology in a similar pricing ballpark.
- buellerbueller 10mo agoAnd audio. I don't want a separate audio setup.
- SoftTalker 10mo agoA separate audio setup could have much better sound than built-in TV speakers.
- buellerbueller 10mo agoCertainly, but I am not interested in dealing with that.
- ge96 10mo agoI really like that thin one featured on LTT a long time ago, it's like just a sheet of glass you attach to a wall, it's crazy.
- mapt 10mo ago
- stevenjgarner 10mo agoDid they exclude the makers of video projectors (Epson, BenQ, Optoma, etc) simply because the market segment is too small?
- drnick1 10mo agoAs long as the firmware is proprietary and cannot be inspected or modified, the only reliable way to avoid snooping by tech industry is not to connect any "smart" device to the Internet. Use the TV as a dumb monitor for a PC under your control (running Linux). If streaming service X will not run on Linux because DRM is not implemented or enforceable on a free device, do without it, or find alternative sources for the content (hint: Linux ISOs).
- jvanderbot 10mo agoYou say "only", but if it is illegal, optional, and can be detected freely, it is very likely to not happen. For all the snark one can muster about DOJ, with those three things in place, it could get expensive very quickly to try to circumvent the law.
- peterhadlaw 10mo agoWhat about cheap cellular modems built in?
- drnick1 10mo agoIs there any evidence those exist in TVs and other home appliances? Modern cars have cellular modems, I unplugged mine, and would not hesitate to take apart a TV and physically rip off the modem.
- bluGill 10mo agoMaybe not yet - but 5g was built with the idea of making them cheap. It takes a couple years to design the cheap modems and then a few more years to get them in TVs, so they could well be coming in the near future yet - only time will tell. And the modem will also be your wifi so you can't really rip it off without losing other useful things.
- gruez 10mo ago>but 5g was built with the idea of making them cheap For bandwidth, maybe. It's still going to add cost to the BOM. They'll have to recoup that somehow. Say a 5G modem costs $20 (random number). For it to actually make money, it'll need to be otherwise not connected to the internet, otherwise it can just use wifi instead. Out of 100 people, how many do you think won't connect it to the internet for privacy reasons? 1? 5? 10? Keep in mind, if they don't connect to the internet, they'll need to go out and get another device to watch netflix or whatever, so they're highly incentivized to. Say 10 out of 100 don't, and with this sneaky backdoor you now can sell ads to them. For that privilege, you paid $200 per disconnected TV, because for every disconnected TV with a 5G module, you need to have a 5G module in 9 other TVs that were already connected to the internet. How could you ever hope to recoup that expense?
- DougN7 10mo agoIt seems like there is a big business opportunity for someone to create a box you attach to your network to filter outgoing info, and incoming ads. Too much work for a tiny team to research what everything is talking to, and MITM your devices and watch DNS queries, etc, but if there was something dead simple to block a Samsung fridge from getting to its ad server, I have to think it would sell.
- packetlost 10mo agoYou probably overestimate the market for something like that. Most people don't know or care. Those that do are more likely to hang out on HN or adjacent places and know how to deal with it themselves anyways.
- brewdad 10mo agoUntil Samsung builds a fridge that won't cool if it goes more than some period of time (a week?) without pinging their servers. They'd probably get away with it given the friction of getting a large appliance out of your home and back to the store. Bonus evil points for making this feature active only after the return/warranty period expires.
- sxates 10mo agoThat exists, it's called a pi-hole, and it's very popular. It will block the 'tv spy' apps.
- jimt1234 10mo agoI tried using a Pi-hole for this exact reason: prevent bullcrap TV ads. My Roku TV wouldn't stopped working. I had to whitelist so many roku-related domains that it basically became pointless.
- travem 10mo agoI had the same issue, decided to remove Roku instead… I used to have a Roku TV, plus a a few of the standalone Roku Ultras for my other (non-Roku) TVs. I got a full page advert when I started up the TV one day and started the process of replacing them all (I think it is when Roku were experimenting with that). Over about a year I replaced them with Apple TVs* and the user experience is far better, plus the amount of tracking domains reported by Pi-hole dropped precipitously! The TVs don't have internet access at all, they are just driven via the HDMI port now. * I replaced the Ultras first, and when the Roku TV eventually started acting laggy on the apps I replaced the Roku TV as well.
- Lapsa 10mo agoreminder: there's tech that reads your mind. who gives a fuck about some Smart TV bullcrap
- qotgalaxy 10mo ago[dead]
- spike021 10mo agoI've had the advertising settings disabled on my LG C2 for a while and yesterday I decided to browse the settings menu again and found that a couple new ones had been added and turned on by default. Good times.
- BloondAndDoom 10mo agoI’m using my tv with all the stuff disabled (the ones it’s possibly disable), but even then I realize I don’t trust them and I don’t trust their choices. Because they get to say sorry and not held responsible. I want smart tv because I want use my streaming services but that’s it. I also want high quality panels. Maybe the solution is high quality TVs where you just stick a custom HDMI device (similar to Amazon fire stick) and use it as the OS. Not sure if there are good open source options since Apple seems to be another company that keeps showing you ads even if you pay shit load of money for their hardware and software, Jobs must turning in his grave
- chasing0entropy 10mo agoThe solution is a separate, internet connected device to play media connected to a non-connected tv.
- catlikesshrimp 10mo agoHonest question: Why would "separate internet connected device", in the case of apple tv, firestick, roku, etc, won't do the same thing?
- nativeit 10mo agoI think they probably would, with maybe the exception of Apple TV. It’s probably not a coincidence that Apple TVs are the only hardware in this space that isn’t sold at a loss (or near loss), the rest are simply Trojan horses to park in the living room and maximize profit elsewhere by leveraging its privileged access to your eyeballs and/or ears (really no orifice is safe from these companies anymore, watch out for Smart Bidets).
- lifestyleguru 10mo agoSmart TVs turned into computers with monitors and microphones, except the whole computer part is out of our control and they barely work as a monitor.
- rootusrootus 10mo agoSadly, it seems like the contingent of people who have a problem with Smart TVs is small but noisy, and has no real market power. If there were any significant number of people who would pay for a dumb high end TV, the market would sell them one. Sort of reminds me how we complain loudly about how shitty airline service is, and then when we buy tickets we reliably pick whichever one is a dollar cheaper.
- buellerbueller 10mo agoDumb TVs are hard to find: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/the-ars-technica-guide-to-dumb-tvs/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/the-ars-technica-gui...
- stonogo 10mo agoThis isn't really an accurate analysis because it assumes the only parties involved are the TV manufacturers and the purchasing consumers. In fact the third party is ad brokers and so the calculus to alienate some users in pursuit of ad dollars is different.
- rossdavidh 10mo agoA situation in which many people care a little,but a few people care a lot in the other direction,is almost exactly what government is for. Ken Paxton has issues, for sure, but good on him in this case.
- dfxm12 10mo agoIf there were any significant number of people who would pay for a dumb high end TV, the market would sell them one. I don't think they would. There are some TV manufacturers that are better about not nagging you (which is one of the reasons why I bought a Sony last year), but as time moves forward, companies have been less likely to leave money on the table. This is just the logical result of capitalism. Regulation will be the only way to protect consumer privacy. Similarly, air travel gets worse as consumer protection regulations gets rolled back
- m463 10mo agoI think government is the only way to regulate below pain threshold nonsense that weighs down society. but I think small issues in society might translate to small issues for government action, and regulatory capture has a super-high roi overturning "minor" stuff. I suspect only showing real harm for something is the only way to get these things high-enough priority for action. I kind of wonder if the pager attacks, or the phone nonsense in ukraine/russia might make privacy a priority?
- 1yvino 10mo agosurprising to see that this lawsuit hasn't originated from CA given the privacy laws that was established such as CCPA.
- dredmorbius 10mo agoCalifornia is friendlier to both advertising (Google, Facebook) and entertainment (Hollywood, generally), which might tip the balance. But yes.
- gambiting 10mo agoHa, we had a company email to all employees saying that we are not allowed to view any company confidential material on any Samsung TVs and appliances because they will take a screenshot of whatever it is you are watching and send it back to Samsung, unless explicitly disabled in settings but that setting is frequently "bugged" and just turns itself back on after some firmware updates.
- sidewndr46 10mo agoDo they also block using Microsoft Windows ?
- gambiting 10mo agoDoes windows take screenshots of my activity and send it to Microsoft to sell me ads?
- a456463 10mo agohttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-steps-with-recall-aa03f8a0-a78b-4b3e-b0a1-2eb8ac48701c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-ste...
- gambiting 10mo ago"Recall does not share snapshots or associated data with Microsoft or third parties" So the answer is no, it doesn't.
- mixmastamyk 10mo agoYou're not thinking four dimensionally. https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/06/windows-recall-demands-an-extraordinary-level-of-trust-that-microsoft-hasnt-earned/ https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/06/windows-recall-demands-an...
- tonyplee 10mo agoAny good options for wifi/wire gateway (opensource) that can filter and block spying?
- a456463 10mo agohttps://pi-hole.net/ https://pi-hole.net/
- wkat4242 10mo agoYeayyyy now for the EU to finally do the same. But they're too busy nerfing privacy laws to appease trump.
- indoordin0saur 10mo agoIn Soviet Russia TV watches YOU!
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- autoexec 10mo agoI'm happy to see it. They should have included Roku in that too! > Roughly twice per second, a Roku TV captures video “snapshots” in 4K resolution. These snapshots are scanned through a database of content and ads, which allows the exposure to be matched to what is airing. For example, if a streamer is watching an NFL football game and sees an ad for a hard seltzer, Roku’s ACR will know that the ad has appeared on the TV being watched at that time. In this way, the content on screen is automatically recognized, as the technology’s name indicates. The data then is paired with user profile data to link the account watching with the content they’re watching. https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/acr-the-future-of-tv-and-audience-data https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/acr-the-future-... I wouldn't be surprised if my PS5 was doing the same thing when I'm playing a game or watching a streaming service through it.
- ms7m 10mo agoThis is especially annoying and just incredibly creepy -- I was watching a clip of Smiling Friends on YouTube (via my Apple TV), and I suddenly got a banner telling me to watch this on HBO Max. I never felt more motivated to pi-hole the TV.
- gruez 10mo ago>I never felt more motivated to pi-hole the TV. Or just disconnect from the internet entirely? You already have an apple tv. Why does your tv need internet access?
- hotstickyballs 10mo agoTVs tend to incessantly ask for internet access, especially android ones.
- loloquwowndueo 10mo agoThen don’t buy an Android tv?
- order-matters 10mo agoIt should be illegal to set information collection settings to on by default. Being watched is considered a threat almost universally across all animals. you would be incredibly uncomfortable with someone wide-eyed staring you down and taking notes of your behavior, wouldnt you? This is what tech companies are doing to everyone by default and in many cases they actively prevent you from stopping them. It is the most insane thing that people only seem to mildly complain about.
- idle_zealot 10mo agoHumans are intensely social creatures, and are not adapted to feel the same way about things done invisibly versus visibly. That's how you end up in weird situations where people know the pervasive spying we're subjected to is wrong, but can't muster the will to act on it most of the time. It's cases like these where "voting with your wallet" produces terrible results. On one end you have organized groups of people figuring out chinks in human instincts, and on the other you have an unorganized mass of people doing what feels right or is expedient. You need coordination on both ends for competition and optimization to play out and find an acceptable compromise.
- Razengan 10mo ago> Humans are intensely social creatures, and are not adapted to feel the same way about things done invisibly versus visibly. This is why the EFF or some other privacy watchdog should fund a ad campaign depicting Google, Facebook etc. as a creepy stalker character peeking through someone's window, following them around, noting everything they do, gaslighting them etc. Expose this abnormal norm for the disgusting behavior it is.
- nyeah 10mo agoIt's always amazing how many people plop anti-consumer comments out here. Like, of course you bastards deserve to be served ads on your own TV that you just paid $800 for. Because why? Because ... the market is wise, and "the market" is screwing us, so ... we must ... deserve to be screwed? Whatever is being offered to us must be the best deal we can get, because ... it's being offered to us? What drives this sentiment? Is it Stockholm Syndrome?
- wmf 10mo agoHN is a haven for principled libertarians but I don't see many such comments in this thread.
- stevage 10mo agoIt's driven by the fact that many of these people work for companies doing similar things, and this is how they resolve the cognitive dissonance. Otherwise they'd have to accept that their work is unethical.
- nyeah 10mo agoI've wondered about cognitive dissonance. Another "cog diss" possibility is, maybe I have a strong aversion to admitting that I'm getting screwed. Maybe I can relieve those feelings by arguing publicly that I'm not getting screwed. Or that it's "inevitable" for me to be screwed. I don't know. It's one guess among many.
- benced 10mo agoBecause the companies are selling technology to us cheaper than cost in exchange for this? I do think they should be required to offer a revenue-neutral way to turn off ads but it would cost several hundred dollars and only me & 5 other weirdos on this website would buy it. You can look at Vizio's quarterly statements before Walmart bought them: their devices were margin negative and "Platform+" (ads) made up for it: https://investors.vizio.com/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx https://investors.vizio.com/financials/quarterly-results/def...
- moomoo11 10mo agoIs this the Californication of Texas?
- platevoltage 10mo agoI mean, I expect it to happen in my lifetime.
- dramm 10mo agoExcellent. Badly needed. Thank you Texas.
- frndsprotocol 10mo agoThis is exactly why the current ad model is broken. Users are tracked without real consent, advertisers still waste budgets, and everyone loses except the platforms collecting the data. What’s interesting is that you can actually build effective ads without spying at all — by targeting intent signals instead of identities, and rewarding users transparently for engagement. The tech is already there, but the incentives are still backwards.
- mateo411 10mo agoThis is called contextual advertising. It's becoming more popular as cookies are becoming less effective.
- cma 10mo agoWiretapping laws should apply; you could have an HDMI capture card hooked up to camera with mic etc.
- SunshineTheCat 10mo agoIt has been increasingly interesting to me how aligned the interests of platforms are with advertisers against the end consumer. I don't think I have ever heard a person say they enjoy watching ads (except maybe the super bowl and even then it's a pretty short list). Despite that, it seems like ads continue to multiply and companies get even more annoying and slimy with how they integrate them. I guess what I'm wondering is where the breaking point is, when people start abandoning ad-filled platforms all together and ads become less profitable to sell/purchase. The person or company to figure out a way other than ads to monetize eye balls (and its not just data, that's only used to make better ads) will be the next Google.
- nhumrich 10mo ago> they will be the next Google No, Google will copy them and shut them down.
- tyjen 10mo agoIt's absurd, I've blocked outgoing connections for all home devices and appliances by default. The printer and TV were some of the worst culprits.
- mmooss 10mo agoHow do you watch streaming content? If you choose a movie in Netflix, I expect it makes an outgoing connection to Netflix's servers.
- a456463 10mo agoThey typically use different dns domain and subdomains or subpaths, because the same server cannot ingest analytics and stream data at the same time. So, keep roku.com but block scribe.roku.com
- mmooss 10mo agoI understand that. It would seem to take a lot of experimentation: Netflix has a lot of servers and domains, and at their scale many could be involved in any interaction.
- jmward01 10mo agoI've said it before and I will probably say it again, this is digital assault and should be thought of and treated that way. Companies, and their officers, should be treated criminally for things like this. Most people do not know/understand this is happening and that is by design. Is this view a little hyperbolic? Possibly, but the privacy scales are so far tipped against the average person right now that we need more extreme views and actions to start fixing things.
- mmooss 10mo agoWhy focus on TV makers and not include social media and other computer/phone surveillance?
- platevoltage 10mo agoProbably because Ken Paxton has no issue with surveillance.
- CGMthrowaway 10mo agoNext do Smart TVs listening to you. This is the #1 cause of "uncanny" ads that people get on Facebook, etc. when they think their phone is listening to them. It's usually their TV doing the listening. edit: why the downvotes?
- mark_l_watson 10mo agoGood for Texas. State governments often protect us from the federal government. Many laws that we have now were only passed at the federal level when about 2/3 of states previously passed the same laws (e.g., women's voting rights).
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- nneonneo 10mo agoACR needs to die. It’s an absurd abuse of the privileged position that a TV has - a gross violation of privacy just to make a few bucks. It should be absolutely nobody’s business to know what you watch except your own; the motivation behind the VPPA was to kill exactly this type of abuse. The greatest irony is that HDCP goes to great lengths to try and prevent people from screenshotting copyrighted content, and here we have the smart TVs at the end just scraping the content willy-nilly. If someone manages to figure out how to use ACR to break DRM, maybe the MPAA will be motivated to kill ACR :)
- sailfast 10mo agoThis is an excellent idea.
- DrewADesign 10mo agoNext stop: auto manufacturers and location data.
- patrickk 10mo agoThe ship has sailed on that one. The telematics from the car can also be sent back to the mothership, i.e. if you’re driving like a lunatic, pulling donuts, harsh acceleration and so on.
- hsbauauvhabzb 10mo agoWhich is even more absurd. You can watch illegal things on TV too. Both are a gross breach of monopolistic power.
- aziaziazi 10mo agoyou can directly hurt more people with a car than a TV though
- hsbauauvhabzb 10mo ago
- intothemild 10mo agoReminder. Just don't connect a smart tv to the internet. Easy fix
- Tempest1981 10mo agoNevada has a gaming dept that certifies the firmware in "slot" machines. It shouldn't be hard to do the same for TVs. Maybe include cars too... they like to phone home more than they should.
- mschuster91 10mo agoOne does not want to end up on the bad side of Nevada's Gaming Commission [1]. They can and will rip you apart. [1] https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000298248/hearing-in-las-vegas-geraet-fuer-novomatic-und-ex-chef-neumann-zum-fiasko https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000298248/hearing-in-la...
- robomartin 10mo agoIt's about time. They should include Vizio as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/search/?q=ads https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/search/?q=ads https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/search/?q=advertising https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/search/?q=advertisin... It's amazing to see what they have gotten away with in the last few years. The average consumer has no choice and now way to opt out of the nonsense.
- wileydragonfly 10mo ago“How many times is he gonna watch that Kathy Ireland swimsuit special for 2-3 minutes?” “X + 1” I hope they’re enjoying the video footage.
- ch2026 10mo agoThis is the same AG who sued Tylenol over autism. While we can applaud the effort (broken clock theory?), it’s all but guaranteed he’s getting paid for helping another entity. Corruption is on the menu and fully expected these days.
- 29athrowaway 10mo agoDisable Internet connection and just use them as a display.
- pier25 10mo agoIt’s not spying. You agree to that in the tos! /s
- navaed01 10mo agoFundamentally how is this any different from what Google or Meta or Comcast or AT&T do? Comcast knows everything that goes to the TV and sells that data. At&T sells your browsing data… Those are services you pay for monthly. Sure the method is different but it’s the same goal. Company x learns your interests so It can monetize you by selling to advertisers
- anon7000 10mo agoAT&T sounds like the same thing, Google sounds different because they theoretically claim to not sell your data, and instead sell ads, and Google can show you an ad you want to see because Google knows you so well. It doesn’t precisely sell you to advertisers in the same way. Anyways, the whole thing sucks for consumer privacy and needs to be outlawed. The problem is that companies come up with unique, tricky ways of exploiting you, and people can never fully understand it without a lot of effort. Someone might be ok using Google and seeing contextual ads, but wouldn’t be ok if they knew Google was saving a screenshot of their browser every second and uploading and reselling it. The first can feel innocuous, the second feels evil.
- criddell 10mo agoWhy do you think it's different? At first glance it seems more or less the same thing to me.
- jjulius 10mo ago>Fundamentally how is this any different from what Google or Meta or Comcast or AT&T do? It's all garbage all the way down.
- StanislavPetrov 10mo agoI've got two more dumb TVs sitting in my closet for when this one burns out for exactly this reason.
- sroussey 10mo agoDo they mention tagging your Bluetooth IDs at the same time?
- p0w3n3d 10mo agoI wonder why it takes a one state to wake up legally speaking. Why the Federal Government is not speaking about this... Or EU for that matter
- 9dev 10mo agoIn other news, Americans discover why the GDPR isn’t such a bad idea after all!
- jsrozner 10mo agoSeriously, why can't we just have a law that makes entirely illegal the retention of any personally identifiable information in any way that is legible to the retainer. You can store my data for me, but only encrypted, and it can be decrypted only in a sandbox. And the output of the sandbox can be sent only back to me, the user. Decrypting the personal data for any other use is illegal. If an audit shows a failure here, the company loses 1% of revenue the first time, then 2%, then 4, etc. And companies must offer to let you store all of your own data on your own cloud machine. You just have to open a port to them with some minimum guarantees of uptime, etc. They can read/write a subset of data. The schema must be open to the user. Any systems that have been developed from personal user data (i.e. recommendation engines, trained models) must be destroyed. Same applies: if you're caught using a system that was trained in the past on aggregated data across multiple users, you face the same percentage fines. The only folks who maybe get a pass are public healthcare companies for medical studies. Fixed. (But yeah it'll never happen because most of the techies are eager to screw over everyone else for their own gain. And they'll of course tell you it's to make the services better for you.)
- leogiertz 10mo agoYou mean like GDPR but stronger?
- jsrozner 10mo agoi mean that the business models of google and facebook would go poooof
- rightbyte 10mo agoSadly not. Context based ads is a thing.
- amelius 10mo agoContext based ads also give away information about the user. Because if you buy the goods that were advertised the vendor knows which contexts apply to you. It is not very precise information and it may involve probabilities, but it is still information.
- zkmon 10mo agoDid they sue Google for reading all your emails? Or Meta for seeing all your personal history? Or Walmart for determining someone's very personal relationships based on their buying patterns? Or just every salesman out there whose job is to be nosy about customer's life and work?
- wtcactus 10mo agoSincerely, for anyone technical competent, I don't even see the reason to connect your TV to the internet (or even the local network). I do have a smart TV, but I have no use for it since my NVIDIA Shield does all the lifting. A good enough android TV dongle will cost €30. So...
- Rakshath_1 10mo ago[flagged]
- emsign 10mo agoThanks, Texas.
- Cthulhu_ 10mo ago> accusing them of “secretly recording what consumers watch in their own homes.” Secret? There's T's&C's that people agree to when starting up their TV that tells them. That doesn't make it right of course and it shouldn't just be opt-in, it should be banned entirely. If you want to analyse my viewing behaviour, pay me.
- moooo99 10mo agoI would be curious to see a comparison of the T&Cs in these TVs. I generally agree that reading the T&C is on the user and you cannot blame the lack if transparency onto the company, IF the T&C are sufficiently comprehensible. Some T&Cs I‘ve read are written in obscure enough legalese that it might as well be considered hidden information
- lodovic 10mo agoSo you buy a new TV, unpack and install it, and then when the whole family is gathered around, you suddenly get this confirmation on the TV if you agree with their T&C. Are you supposed to reject them and return the TV at this point? T&C should be part of the purchase agreement, instead of being forced upon the user while using the product after purchase. Any one-sided change of T&C after purchase should be invalid and punishable.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 10mo agoIt's secret because they don't tell you exactly what they record and how. Can you?
- nottorp 10mo agoI skimmed through what the TX governor/attorney general/whatever it's called said, and I don't think he even understands "privacy". All he's bothered about is that the data is going to China instead of American companies.
- pnt12 10mo agoBut they named companies that are not Chinese eg Samsung. I think the claims are well spirited and the China argument is an aggravating factor for many, so no harm in having it. Will likely lead to higher interest in the case, so that's good.
- nottorp 10mo agoSamsung is still Korean, which means the money made off your data are not going to an all american company :) Also, if i remember what I read well, he may not be aware that Samsung is not Chinese.
- delis-thumbs-7e 10mo agoWhat American TV manufacturers is there? LG is from Korea as well, Sony is originally from Japan and there two smaller (I assume, since Koreans dominate display market) Chinese manufacturers. But together those five are most of the units manufactured globally, so makes sense to sue them to have the biggest impact.
- not_so_34 10mo ago“Companies, especially those connected to the Chinese Communist Party, have no business illegally recording Americans’ devices inside their own homes,” Paxton said. “This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries.”
- cestith 10mo agoSaying especially one subgroup does not negate other subgroups being included in a larger group.
- RataNova 10mo agoThe China angle will grab headlines, but the more uncomfortable truth is that the entire smart TV ad model seems to depend on surveillance most users never fully understood they were opting into
- jwr 10mo agoAs a reminder if you own an LG TV, turn off the sneakily named "Live Plus" thing. This "option" makes your LG TV spy on you, tracking and reporting what you watch based on the image that is shown on the TV. You need to go to Settings -> All Settings -> General -> System -> Additional Settings to make sure the "Live Plus" option is OFF. Check it periodically, as it sometimes turns itself back on again after updates.
- he0001 10mo agoIsn’t this a thing for all providers? YouTube definitely spies on what you look at and Netflix knows as well. Or is this just because a TV actually doesn’t provide the content, just the view? And is there’s a difference if you have a streaming device like Roku?
- lingrush4 10mo agoContent providers knowing when I watch their content is not concerning to me. They're on the other side of a transaction with me; they have as much a right to store the details of the transaction as I do. Even Blockbuster had that information. What's concerning is when third parties start snooping on transactions that they are not involved in.
- marsven_422 10mo ago[dead]
- cknives1 10mo agoI just assume everything is spying on me. It doesn’t change my behavior much, but I definitely don’t try to do anything illegal if I can help it.
- a456463 10mo agoWhat is _illegal_? And who defines _illegal_? And would you know when something legal is made _illegal_?
- thdrtol 10mo agoGood. As long as there are no clear laws this will only get worse. Imagine a TV with an e-sim. There will be no way to turn the connection off unless you pack it in aluminum foil. Talking about e-sim, Texas should also sue all modern car brands. Most cars today are online and spy on your driving behavior.
- arein3 10mo agoThis is scary, but very likely in the future.
- qwertox 10mo agoSounds like a thing the EU could regulate for us Europeans. Though I do not understand why this isn't categorizes as illegitimate spying.
- firesteelrain 10mo agoUS needs something like GPDR.
- HardwareLust 10mo agoThis is yet another case of people clicking through the TOS without reading or understanding it.
- immibis 10mo agoIsn't that legal in Texas though?
- Lemonshine 10mo ago[dead]
- csallen 10mo ago> Vizio, which is now owned by Walmart, paid $2.2 million to the Federal Trade Commission and New Jersey in 2017 over similar allegations related to ACR. Lmao $2.2m is less than nothing to Walmart.
- gosub100 10mo agoAll of the big TV makers? So spying is okay if it's done on a smaller screen? (/S sorry couldn't resist a little context sensitive Grammer joke.)
- herodotus 10mo agoWhat bugs me is that it is impossible to buy a TV these days that is not "smart". (Of course I know I can just not connect it to the internet, and I don't, but I wish there was a company in the TV market which would make privacy a selling point).
- stevetron 10mo agoMaybe I'm a little slow, but assuming that everything I watch on TV is copyrighted content, wouldn't that make every screen-grab a DRM violation?
- queuebert 10mo agoThe sheer amount of compute spent on advertising on this planet boggles my mind.
- padjo 10mo agoAlso all the smart people spending a career trying to get other people to buy things that they don’t want or need l, the relentless consumption of which degrades the very environment which supports us. It’d be funny if you didn’t have to play the game too.
- justinc8687 10mo agoI personally have a Samsung TV, but this ACR and ad stuff is why ever since the moment I took it out of the box, it has never and will never, be plugged into the internet. I simply use an Google TV plugged into it for my actual streaming, and avoid all of this ACR nonsense (yes Google has their own tracking but I want Tailscale and SmartTube). I think this is the way to do it. Just use your smart TV as a dumb TV, and move on.
- sycren 10mo agoSo what if a large TV is being used to cast business information in a meeting? It's ironic that Sony as a media producer and TV maker could be streaming copyrighted images for an algorithm to use. Could this be used as an example from AI companies on the use of copyrighted images for training data?
- realo 10mo agoHello Texas! What about cars? Tesla, in particular does record an awful lot of personal data about you...
- a456463 10mo agoDo NOT connect a machine you don't have control over to the internet. Every machine these days will spy on you
- danielodievich 10mo agoIt gives me distinct pleasure to see the little network cable plug from the cable coming from TV be sticking just so half-way out of the network switch enough so that I can easily plug it back in without hunting for it behind all the equipment, but also enough to know it can't talk to anything.
- molind 10mo agoAfter this article I installed AdBlock Home to my HA unit and moved DHCP to it. Filtered LG domains and few thousands others. Apparently LG TV actively uses internet even in switched off state.
- a456463 10mo agoIt's bonkers to say the least and unacceptable.
- 8bitsrule 10mo agoI remember a time when the word "smart" referred to a high level of intelligence. Rather than a marketing ploy aimed at the innocent.
- saghm 10mo agoIf I had been told I'd an article today with the phrase "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims..." and asked to predict the remainder of the sentence, a reasonable pro-consumer stance would probably not have been in my top 20 guesses.
- richvos 10mo agoCan you stop this type of activity with DNS blocking or is it just inescapable?
- poppafuze 10mo agoThey'll introduce a "privacy-class" TV soon enough.