If you have an LG TV, ACR tracking is ON BY DEFAULT and you need to turn it off manually. It is well hidden, in settings, "Additional Settings", "Live Plus" needs to be switched off.
It is mind-boggling that there is no uproar over this. Of course, if the EU were to make a fuss, Americans would be all screaming "it's over-regulating!".
My strategy is I never accept the ToS on the TV. By and large major manufacturers don’t track unless the ToS are accepted after Vizio was caught. I still get firmware patches and can do home automation signals from the TV activity on LG without ever accepting the ToS. YMMV. Periodically after a firmware update it prompts to accept the ToS again otherwise it’s pretty silent. I do not however use any smart tv features. For my prior generation I just never attached them to a network.
> None of the major TV manufacturers is based in the US, so I guess we won't have to worry about the EU regulating
The EU tries to regulate things that get too dangerous to its citizens. The important part though is enforcement which due to limited resources will inherently focus on the biggest players, where the impact is greatest. Players don't get bigger than US based big-tech. It's not unreasonable at all once you think about it.
> what other country besides the US has a law that specifically prohibits giving a bribe to a foreign government?
They allow and encourage lobbying which is literally used to the same effect. So it's a bit of a moot point, more like posturing than anything else... Much like some apropos :).
Not really, they're very much pissed about Chinese EVs now but the EC is tooo slooow to act. The Biden administration already hit them with tariffs and they're now considering banning the software that phones home. No need for weather baloons when you have cars with cameras and microphones all over the place.
You clearly dont know how regulation works, EU pushed many corporation to globally change their arrogant ways, ie apple dropping their proprietary plug, globally. Thats the power of half a billion relatively rich market.
The other part is immature basic whataboutism that doesnt deserve a response, I am sure you can do better, and more on topic hopefully.
Aside from not having one of these devices at all, or disconnecting it from internet access, if you have one and want to opt-out of ACR (Automatic Content Recognition), you need to make sure that you did not select to 'opt-in' to "personalization" type features on the device.
ACR opt-ins are not presented to end-users with a clear statement of what the opt-in means or what will happen with your data from your device and are often presented as turning on "personalization" (generally, for advertising purposes).
The various TV or tv-related device manufacturers use different names for "ACR," so you'll need to decipher what your manufacturer calls this to disable the feature. Consumer Reports has a useful guide covering multiple brands on how to turn off ACR: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
If you find that your device has already been opted-in, you can disable the selection, and submit a request to have your device's information removed in some jurisdictions. You can also select to have your device's identifier id (e.g. "PSID" etc) reset from the device before performing a full factory/configuration reset of the device and setting it up again. If you fully reset the device, you'll want to watch out for the ways the manufacturer will try to get you to opt-in during the setup process. Many people have ACR-turned on without knowing.
It's also worth firewalling, or at least using dns-based blocking, any "smart tv" type devices on your network. Some of them even do periodic scans of your network and send that information to the manufacturer when they "phone home."
On an LG TV, ACR tracking is deceptively called "Live Plus", and it is on by default. I was very careful not to opt in to anything, but they it was still on when I discovered it. Also, you apparently do not own your homescreen, it's their property to do with as they wish.
I run AdGuard at my parent’s home and it’s crazy the amount of logs (blocked DNS queries) I get from the TVs alone. Before that Windows was the biggest offender but I switched them to Linux Mint since.
Mint has been by far the most stable / least "requires CLI fix on a weekly basis" distro I've used so far, but I gotta ask: how's that working out?
I like it a fair bit, but I've still had to figure out weirdly broken things like "captive portals always look like the wifi didn't connect at all, but `nmcli c up` fixes that" which I can't imagine most non-computer-oriented-Windows-haters in my life would be able to manage...
Honestly, for my parents it has been a delightful experience. They have quite a basic usage of their computer, mainly web browsing, some Excel/Word, managing files like photos, and occasionally printing.
I didn't brief them much, I just installed and configured everything that was necessary for them, and let them figure out the rest. To my surprise, they managed everything on their own! Which made me realize how far UX went in the Linux world.
In terms of maintenance, every six months when I get home for a visit, I run some updates and answer some of their questions. It's very low maintenance, especially compared to Windows.
Also, I noticed quite an interesting side effect when installing Mint for non-techy people. They feel empowered because I trust them to run Linux, which they believe is reserved to the elite techies. This also makes them respect their computer more, which in turn makes them run into less issues as they are more careful with that they do.
Just taken a look at my Adguard Home query log for my TV, it seems to try and make hundreds of requests to "logs.netflix.com" for some reason - I'm not a subscriber to Netflix, I've never opened the Netflix app, I just turned on the TV and it's sitting on a HDMI source that's turned off so it isn't even doing anything
...and yet it keeps trying to connect to "logs.netflix.com" for reasons I do not understand. Granted, it could be just crappy retry logic, but still, why ping this endpoint when I'm not even using netflix!
I was looking at getting a TV and they all have garbage "smart" features I don't want. Someone told me to get a sceptre tv without any of that but I can't find them in my country and their actual panels don't seem that great.
So all thats left is looking for commercial panels but a lot of those have built in content management systems now too.
Why not take advantage of the subsidized price of the “smart” model, never plug it into the internet or connect it to wifi, and just plug in your devices of choice? Best of both worlds.
I think the only real problem with that is at some point (if they aren't already) they will embed cellular modems and just exfiltrate the data that way. They do this now in cars, why not TVs too?
1) From the perspective of the manufacturers that's theft of service. The manufacturers will implement measures to ensure your use of the TV is contingent upon them continuing data collecting and serving ads. Think TVs piggybacking off any available wireless connection (even LTE or 5G), or simply refusing to function until the network is set up.
2) That's still a lot of potentially crash-prone crud that's running. Better to just buy a Sceptre or maybe a large computer monitor, and have nothing running that isn't dedicated to "get pixels into eyeballs".
If this model of "theft of service" is legally enforceable, then significant swaths of this industry are engaging in false advertising and possibly full-on fraud by not making this agreement they're entering into clear to customers prior to their purchase of the device
From an ethical perspective, you will never convince me to feel bad about any "theft" of this kind, and this kind of dilution of concepts like "theft" and "crime" is likely responsible for the emotional valence of those terms reading a lot less significantly negative to people
I'm not saying that you should feel bad about it. What I am saying is that the manufacturers won't feel bad about fighting you on this issue, and coming up with ways to force you to see the advertisements they want you to see, and turn over the data they want on you.
It's a principle I'll call Kellner's Law: If a company makes a product or service available free or at a discount by involving advertisers, from the company's perspective that creates an implicit contractual obligation on the customer's part to see the ads; and any attempt to take advantage of the freebie/discount whilst avoiding the ads will be considered a form of theft, legitimizing any technical or legal means at the company's disposal to force customers to see the ads, or else to withdraw service from those who try to avoid them. Kellner's Law explains a lot of corporate behaviors in this space, including crackdowns by YouTube and other sites on Web-based ad blockers.
I named it for Jamie Kellner, a television executive who when TiVo (which famously allowed skipping ads in television programs recorded to the device) came out, said "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots" and that skipping ads with a device like TiVo was "actually stealing programming".
Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.
Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).
> Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.
If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.
Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.
Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.
If he lied when he swore the oath, is he still a doctor?
BTW, I like this game: 'endlessly avoid making a point'. The winner is the person who gets the other one to end up questioning something that is required for a shared reality -- thus effectively admitting they might as well be arguing with themselves.
Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.
Ad revenue means tvs priced for less than they ought to be, it's a trade-off for consumers. You could quibble about the externalities but it's ridiculous to suggest there's no upside, for anyone. If that were true they wouldn't sell.
You can't claim something is a benefit for consumers if the consumers are not offered a competing product without the predatory features for more money. Let's put a 'dumb' TV on the market and regulate that 'smart' TV boxes have to say 'this is cheaper because we make most of our profit from it by screenshoting what you watch 100 times a second and selling it to the highest bidder' and see what the market thinks about it.
Also if you buy a TV with no ads or other predatory features, then they push a software update that adds them. You can hardly say the customer was a "rational actor" who made an informed choice if you change their property after you sold it to them.
Under end-stage capitalism, the one and only thing driving the market is maximal extraction of all conceivable value within a financial quarter. There are no other concerns. The market inherently cannot consider any other consequences or benefits beyond short term gains at any cost.
Flowers can’t be eaten. They’re just for someone to look at. Heck most people probably don’t even look at them and buy it as a part of a ritual or formality. Does it mean the flower industry is of no benefit to society?
Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.
Yeah, but people who grow or sell flowers are not on the same level as the very very good engineers who develop these dystopian systems. The people in the advertising industry who make these systems could absolutely do more good for society in a different field.
It's a curious thing, though. We have this idea that economic activity with consent is beneficial, and without consent it's theft and harmful. But this is a rule of thumb. The vast majority of things people do are - variously - pointless, inefficient, sentimental, superstitious, idle, crazy, and otherwise indefensible except by the reasoning that it's our right to do what we like with what we own, what we've earned and paid for. This we call wealth, and having it makes us feel happy and secure, but to actually centrally analyze it and assess its usefulness would be a bad thing. That would only make its value evaporate. We want to be free to do dumb things, and not to be told.
And I would argue that this very quickly becomes a race to the bottom, where the viewing of mass produced trash accelerates because "that's what people want to watch" becomes "we'll flood the market with cheap mass produced bullshit" which immediately becomes "people love watching bullshit and our stats say so!"
I also don't believe for a single second, based on their past records, that Sony, or LG, or whoever, are actually properly anonymising this data
It also creates an echo chamber effect, X is popular so we make more X.
Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop.
Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich richer.
That's actually the perfect description of why 'content creators' aren't called artists. They're not creative, they're regurgitative.
Society needs not faded, watered down, muted copies of originals. It needs more originals to inspire more creativity.
Originality is an art unto itself.
What you are right about, however, is the profit inherent in bland copies, which means there's a market out there consisting of dumb, easily satisfied cattle, to be milked by the lazily regurgitative bottom feeders that know only 'what's trending' and have said subscribe! more often than they've had hot meals. Those saviours of society.
Question about anonymous data is well, why not do it where the content originates? Sale of discs? Rental instances online. Number of times something was streamed... Why does it have to happen on end device, when it is entirely possible at source.
Probably more importantly these days, neither do companies have access to data on their competitors. Your TV manufacturer will happily sell them some, though.
It’s often suggested in HN comments that keeping a TV disconnected from the LAN will soon be insufficient to prevent data transmission, because companies are on the cusp of including subsidized cell modems in the devices. Have you ever encountered this idea, and is it actually realistic?
I read somewhere - I think in a previous thread, about the New Scientist version of this story, where somebody posted text from a site selling ACR services - that the real interest lies in empirical measurement of what adverts you're seeing, and the context that you see them in is of only secondary interest. I guess the ads you see could be matched up to what you buy. It's an "are our adverts working on this person?" question (and thus "can we show that our advertising service is worth buying"), more than a question of "what advert do we send this person next?"
Could ACR be used against its creators by creating a tool to detect and automatically block-out advertisements? (e.g. via an HDMI pass-through) There should be enough tell-tale signals (text, sound, number of scene changes, etc.) to distinguish advertisements from non-ad content.
Why do they (LG and Samsung) not fingerprint things streamed from a phone, but do fingerprint anything coming over HDMI? And why do they fingerprint their own FAST services, don't they know what they showed already?
I'm trying to find more information about these 2 companies fingerprinting or hashing anything coming over HDMI. Do you have sources? I thought disconnecting my smart TV from internet to be enough to stop the transmission of any ACR data. My concern would be if they store any ACR data locally and queue it for data collection vs if they stream it.
But also that they send it in batches every 15 seconds (Samsung) or every minute (LG). The question is whether an offline TV will lie in wait to send all the data it collected in one massive batch, when and if it gets online. That wasn't tested.
Coming back to this, I see it's in the paper. There's a mention of copyright, and then:
> Netflix prefers to have ACR deactivated during its streaming “in order to preserve the integrity of its subscribers viewing experiences and maintain sole control over measurement of its viewership” (Verance, 2020). The same reasoning applies to FAST channels, which LG and Samsung consider to be ”aggregator apps” (Wolk, 2023), where providers may have agreements restricting ACR usage.
In other words, FAST comes from other providers, who may complain. Random content over HDMI doesn't. However, this doesn't explain why they ignore video streamed from phones (tablets, laptops, etc) wirelessly.
HDCP is stripped when a stream comes into the device and readded when it leaves, you need to do this for anything more complicated than dumb passthrough. (unless you're using that Bunnie Huang trick to add encrypted data without decrypting for some reason)
When this conversation has come up in the past, I've seen people recommend [0] business displays [1]. They are more expensive, of course, given that they are not subsidized by advertising.
Anime doesn't come in 4K, I have no real reason not to get an early 2010s TV before all this garbage, Sony, LG, Samsung, etc. All for about 100 USD, 200 USD for near enough whatever screen size I'd want for a device right at the bottom of the bathtub curve.
Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV or a PC for best results.
How does that square with "privacy"? Google is an adtech company that makes money on tracking our usage patterns, Chromecast requires logging in, there is no "privacy" around these devices at all.
That’s a very different thing. These are basically sponsored placements in App Store search results based on keywords and not targeted ads based on tracking or cookies.
(That’s also why they are often very bad and not relevant, a common complaint from app developers)
Any brand works if you hook it up to an Apple TV and don't allow the TV itself to connect to the internet (outside of first time setup for software updates I guess).
That's concerning. To be clear, I once worked on a company that developed an audio-based ACR technology to be used in conjunction with a secondary device that users would turn on at their will. Anything more invasive would have been substantially challenging in legal aspects so that was the status quo more than 10 years ago. So it's new to me that not only ACR is somehow pervasive in "smart" devices but also they even don't care whether they are really being used as a television (which has no other interaction mechanism in principle, and ACR is not only for ads).
Surveillance capitalism continues to crush people's privacy, and I don't think the incentive to collect personal data will ever go away. Seriously someone needs to give the big middle finger to Samsung and LG because I want my dumb TVs back.
It may happen. I think at present there is too little demand for comparatively expensive tvs that respect privacy. The tech is in a phase of diminishing returns, as televisions from over a decade ago still suit most people fine, and don't break that easily. Tech people were just turning off features they don't like (until, of course, that's no longer possible). But alongside the price-point, manufacturers are also playing a game of chicken expecting everyone to continue purchasing despite invasive features. At least among tech-oriented people it's possible that sales will slow down, but that might not matter enough for their bottom line to offer an alternative. There may be room for a competitor to try selling boutique tvs, but it's risky. "the market provides", but the demand needs to be strong enough.
Does this send screenshots when you're on HDMI? Wouldn't that be corporate espionage since most tech workers are from home now and lots use a small 4K TV for their PC?
A reminder that the existence of the advertising industry is a tax that drives up the cost of everything that you buy, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that does not actually improve the product in any way, and yet must be recouped by increasing the price of the product.
So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
In addition to making everything you buy cost more, it also leads to lots of people buying a lot of things they don't really need (or want, after the rush of buying another piece of crap wears off)
> A reminder that the existence of the advertising industry is a tax that drives up the cost of everything that you buy, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that does not actually improve the product in any way, and yet must be recouped by increasing the price of the product
I am not going to try to argue that advertising is good or anything, but I don't think your economic argument is accurate.
If a company didn't have to spend anything on advertising, they wouldn't use that money to improve their product or to reduce the price; the money would go towards profit.
So many people seem to think that prices are set at "expense + fixed profit margin = price" but that is not how any company sets their prices. The ONLY reason a business is going to lower prices is because they think that is the way to increase their profit. They aren't going to lower prices just because some cost goes away.
The idea is that they would have to spend that money on improving the good/service or reducing the price in order to compete. Currently more money goes to competing for your attention than on competing on merit.
In an efficient market, competition would drive prices down to reach quite thin profit margins. Of course there is all sorts of friction, change in conditions, inertia, upfront costs, risk etc that reality isn't ideal.
If advertising is giving an expected edge over competition bigger than price decrease, then the advertising will be used in sort of an arms race that could have been a competition in giving the best product for the least money instead.
Still, even if there is no immediate price decrease for the customer, I would be much more satisfied if all the money went to the maker(s) of the product and well-investing shareholders than someone who provides no value and could have been working on something productive instead.
In the case of television screens, the net profit margins on sales of these devices are in the single-digit percentages. Fairly thin, around 4-7%. Higher-end products, such as cutting-edge flagship products (e.g. 100"+ MicroLED television screens) will have higher margins, but lower production yields, and orders of magnitude lower sales volume. These products don't need to be replaced year after year, and most buyers are not selecting a product based on the technical specifications and performance, rather the screen-size per dollar (or whatever currency used) and other factors such as aesthetic appeal of the device in the home environment. The average lifetime, before replacement, of a television screen in North America is somewhere around 5-7 years, and you don't need one in every room of your home or living space.
The commodification of screens from both the production side (i.e. newer entrants to the market from Chinese manufacturers) and from the content portal side (i.e. Roku, Google TV, Fire TV, etc) is a major strategic problem for the television brands you are probably most familiar with. The forementioned examples of content portals are coming from companies that are fundamentally based around advertising, and the companies that were traditionally about manufacturing realized that the advertising revenue opportunity was too good to give up. They are trying to grow their revenue, and profitability, and see that they won't be able to do so from their original core businesses. This is also why you're seeing all of these "FAST" (Free, Ad-supported Streaming Television) services popping up from the tv manufacturers themselves.
Roku is another good focused example because they are a publicly traded company and you can analyze their income statements and business model. Their hardware devices are basically being sold at cost or at a loss so they can seed the market and create an audience (i.e. their inventory) for their high-margin advertising services business.
Google and Amazon also want a large piece of this pie. Apple is starting to show that they want advertising money too.
We are also seeing cases where the television devices themselves can be produced cheap enough to be given away to users that opt into advertising (e.g. Telly: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/15/23721674/telly-free-tv-st...). When this dynamic is economically viable (i.e. give away the hardware, make the money via ads), you can see how big of a problem traditional television device manufacturers have.
> So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
Can a capitalist society operate without advertising? How are people to learn about products and services that are available? Yet today poorly targets ads waste the time of everyone involved. If ads could be made relevant without invading your privacy would you be against that?
1. If I have an interest in a field (say, electronics) and then I attend a conference or gathering that's relevant to that field (say, CES), and then you buy a booth at that conference in order to hawk your wares, that's A-OK. The crucial difference is that I willingly understand the context--I'm going to be going to a place that's all about having people sell me things--and that advertisers are not running roughshod over a space where they don't belong. Consider this "pull-based" advertising rather than the "push-based" advertising where ads get shoved in your face every second of the day everywhere you go, even when you're just trying to live your life.
2. Organic word-of-mouth referrals. In an online, AI-infested world, the "organic" part is increasingly hard to come by, but if someone that I trusts tells me that a product is good, that's great and welcome. Crucially, their reputation with me is on the line if they turn out to be wrong or financially compromised.
3. Simple indication of presence. If you have a shop, you're allowed to have a sign on the front with the name of your shop... within reason. Don't push it. Billboards should be banned.
When you "visit" Google / Facebook / YouTube / other online properties do you think you are "going to a place that's all about having people sell me things"?
Do you mean when an entirely new product category is invented and I didn't even know it's useful to me? Because that's kinda rare.
In other cases such as buying a shoe or a can of beer or a fridge or a car, I just go to the website or the physical store that sells it and I compare the products and buy the most suitable one.
This way purchases would be prompted by an actual need, like when my shoes are worn out, I look to buy new ones instead of it being pushed on me through ads when I don't even need it.
Usually the existence of the ad doesn't mean that it's the best in its category. Why would it be in my interest to be following ads instead of my own research?
Also this gotcha is decades out of date. Today's ads are rarely about the features or suitability of the actual product. Instead they sell a vibe, a lifestyle feeling, they create positive emotional associations in ways orthogonal to the product's attributes. Think Coca Cola with celebrities etc. After all, how would I otherwise know I need a can of coke if the trendy singer didn't tell me about it, right?
I generally find that the ads I see are for things that I definitely don't want and shouldn't purchase, and it's just them pouring bucks into the effort to get in front of my face and wear me down.
Consider that you should never accept cold-call sales or offers under typical circumstances; I make notes on the ads I see in order to blacklist them, essentially.
The good deals are found by my seeking them out, doing research, asking questions. Knowing a brand reputation apart from marketing. Discerning things like corporate culture, attitude, politics, intended market or audience.
So many products and services are made on the basis of shoveling crap to make a profit, or supporting some cause or crusade, and the more I can pierce the veil, the better I feel about where my money's going.
If you do not know a problem is a problem why search for a solution?
If you do not know a product / service exists why would you search for it?
If "search" is your answer what do you suppose advertisers are doing? Are they not searching for customers?
Advertising is an expensive search with many externalities on society. These externalities are wasteful hence the search for a better way to do it. Google / Facebook / ... I think are funded by solving this problem.
> If I don’t know a product or service exists, why do I need it?
Do you not purchase things / services you do not need?
> My life is fine as it is, I don’t need stupid advertisements for stuff that won’t enrich it.
How might you reply to a someone from a few thousand or few hundred or even few dozen years ago that has your attitude? Might you be tempted to advertise to them what they are missing? Would they not be interested?
I do purchase things I don’t need, and I’d like to do less of that. Anyone who was happy many years ago was successful in life, happiness and satisfaction is important. Your arguments do not convince me that the toxic wasteland that is advertising is useful at all.
> If you do not know a problem is a problem why search for a solution?
Exactly, I would NOT search for a solution. No sale. Less consumption.
In most cases if you do not know a problem is a problem, then it is actually NOT a problem.[1]
Advertisers' jobs are to convince you otherwise. e.g. You need our pill. You need our gadget. You need our clothing or cosmetic. Advertising does not care about your best interest. Advertising tries to make a sale and advertising is considered successful if a sale is made even if no problem was solved.
[1] There are some exceptions. Serious medical conditions, for example. I don't think most people object to altruistic advertising campaigns to educate people about genuine health problems and their solutions. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here.
What makes "Less consumption" a good goal? What are biospheres if not cycles of consumption? When our planet becomes sterilized due to some disaster will you celebrate "Less consumption"? Obviously not. EFFICIENT consumption is a good goal so we maximize what we desire and minimize the undesirables.
> Advertising does not care about your best interest. Advertising tries to make a sale and advertising is considered successful if a sale is made even if no problem was solved.
Yes. In a capitalist economy all act in self interest. This is clearly s bad system except if you have experience living under other systems and there the direction of migration should be a clue about what people prefer.
> How are people to learn about products and services that are available?
Remember Yellow Pages?
And if that is not good enough, perhaps you can opt in to an advertising service that shows you ads when you want to see them (as opposed to when they want to show them to you).
If you have an LG TV, ACR tracking is ON BY DEFAULT and you need to turn it off manually. It is well hidden, in settings, "Additional Settings", "Live Plus" needs to be switched off.
It is mind-boggling that there is no uproar over this. Of course, if the EU were to make a fuss, Americans would be all screaming "it's over-regulating!".
My strategy is I never accept the ToS on the TV. By and large major manufacturers don’t track unless the ToS are accepted after Vizio was caught. I still get firmware patches and can do home automation signals from the TV activity on LG without ever accepting the ToS. YMMV. Periodically after a firmware update it prompts to accept the ToS again otherwise it’s pretty silent. I do not however use any smart tv features. For my prior generation I just never attached them to a network.
I didn't accept them either. That didn't prevent LG from auto-enabling the ACR.
How did you observe that it was phoning it home? My network monitoring indicates it’s only checking firmware, but I have 2024 models.
None of the major TV manufacturers is based in the US, so I guess we won't have to worry about the EU regulating ACR, will we?
Apropos of nothing, what other country besides the US has a law that specifically prohibits giving a bribe to a foreign government?
> None of the major TV manufacturers is based in the US, so I guess we won't have to worry about the EU regulating
The EU tries to regulate things that get too dangerous to its citizens. The important part though is enforcement which due to limited resources will inherently focus on the biggest players, where the impact is greatest. Players don't get bigger than US based big-tech. It's not unreasonable at all once you think about it.
> what other country besides the US has a law that specifically prohibits giving a bribe to a foreign government?
They allow and encourage lobbying which is literally used to the same effect. So it's a bit of a moot point, more like posturing than anything else... Much like some apropos :).
> Apropos of nothing, what other country besides the US has a law that specifically prohibits giving a bribe to a foreign government?
Every member of the OECD (including Japan and South Korea) and 8 more countries besides [0]? At a minimum.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OECD_Anti-Bribery_Convention#M...
[Laughs in CIA and Jared Kushner]
None of Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, or Google are based in the EU; all have faced issues due to operating in the EU.
(Off the top of my head: USB-C, GDPR, Digital Services Act, Schrems, and anti-trust fines respectively).
I think the GP post meant that EU only wants to regulate tech if it's American.
Not really, they're very much pissed about Chinese EVs now but the EC is tooo slooow to act. The Biden administration already hit them with tariffs and they're now considering banning the software that phones home. No need for weather baloons when you have cars with cameras and microphones all over the place.
You clearly dont know how regulation works, EU pushed many corporation to globally change their arrogant ways, ie apple dropping their proprietary plug, globally. Thats the power of half a billion relatively rich market.
The other part is immature basic whataboutism that doesnt deserve a response, I am sure you can do better, and more on topic hopefully.
Never mind about the plug; we get third party app stores!
the UK
UK only allows bribes (sorry, I meant to write "freebies") for domestic politicians, not foreign ones.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/28/mps-have-de...
donations
Aside from not having one of these devices at all, or disconnecting it from internet access, if you have one and want to opt-out of ACR (Automatic Content Recognition), you need to make sure that you did not select to 'opt-in' to "personalization" type features on the device.
ACR opt-ins are not presented to end-users with a clear statement of what the opt-in means or what will happen with your data from your device and are often presented as turning on "personalization" (generally, for advertising purposes).
The various TV or tv-related device manufacturers use different names for "ACR," so you'll need to decipher what your manufacturer calls this to disable the feature. Consumer Reports has a useful guide covering multiple brands on how to turn off ACR: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
If you find that your device has already been opted-in, you can disable the selection, and submit a request to have your device's information removed in some jurisdictions. You can also select to have your device's identifier id (e.g. "PSID" etc) reset from the device before performing a full factory/configuration reset of the device and setting it up again. If you fully reset the device, you'll want to watch out for the ways the manufacturer will try to get you to opt-in during the setup process. Many people have ACR-turned on without knowing.
Adding a few more opt-out guides:
https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/stop-your-snooping-smart-tv...
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/how-to-disable-acr-and...
It's also worth firewalling, or at least using dns-based blocking, any "smart tv" type devices on your network. Some of them even do periodic scans of your network and send that information to the manufacturer when they "phone home."
On an LG TV, ACR tracking is deceptively called "Live Plus", and it is on by default. I was very careful not to opt in to anything, but they it was still on when I discovered it. Also, you apparently do not own your homescreen, it's their property to do with as they wish.
I run AdGuard at my parent’s home and it’s crazy the amount of logs (blocked DNS queries) I get from the TVs alone. Before that Windows was the biggest offender but I switched them to Linux Mint since.
Mint has been by far the most stable / least "requires CLI fix on a weekly basis" distro I've used so far, but I gotta ask: how's that working out?
I like it a fair bit, but I've still had to figure out weirdly broken things like "captive portals always look like the wifi didn't connect at all, but `nmcli c up` fixes that" which I can't imagine most non-computer-oriented-Windows-haters in my life would be able to manage...
Honestly, for my parents it has been a delightful experience. They have quite a basic usage of their computer, mainly web browsing, some Excel/Word, managing files like photos, and occasionally printing.
I didn't brief them much, I just installed and configured everything that was necessary for them, and let them figure out the rest. To my surprise, they managed everything on their own! Which made me realize how far UX went in the Linux world.
In terms of maintenance, every six months when I get home for a visit, I run some updates and answer some of their questions. It's very low maintenance, especially compared to Windows.
Also, I noticed quite an interesting side effect when installing Mint for non-techy people. They feel empowered because I trust them to run Linux, which they believe is reserved to the elite techies. This also makes them respect their computer more, which in turn makes them run into less issues as they are more careful with that they do.
How long until these companies start hardcoding dns providers?
A year or so ago, for google devices anyway.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/OPNsenseFirewall/comments/12h1hh7/i...
Just taken a look at my Adguard Home query log for my TV, it seems to try and make hundreds of requests to "logs.netflix.com" for some reason - I'm not a subscriber to Netflix, I've never opened the Netflix app, I just turned on the TV and it's sitting on a HDMI source that's turned off so it isn't even doing anything
...and yet it keeps trying to connect to "logs.netflix.com" for reasons I do not understand. Granted, it could be just crappy retry logic, but still, why ping this endpoint when I'm not even using netflix!
I was looking at getting a TV and they all have garbage "smart" features I don't want. Someone told me to get a sceptre tv without any of that but I can't find them in my country and their actual panels don't seem that great.
So all thats left is looking for commercial panels but a lot of those have built in content management systems now too.
Why not take advantage of the subsidized price of the “smart” model, never plug it into the internet or connect it to wifi, and just plug in your devices of choice? Best of both worlds.
I think the only real problem with that is at some point (if they aren't already) they will embed cellular modems and just exfiltrate the data that way. They do this now in cars, why not TVs too?
I worry that this is what 5g is designed for. Look up 5g mmtc.
Easy. You mess up the antenna or put a big lump of metal on it.
Very hard to do in practice.
1) From the perspective of the manufacturers that's theft of service. The manufacturers will implement measures to ensure your use of the TV is contingent upon them continuing data collecting and serving ads. Think TVs piggybacking off any available wireless connection (even LTE or 5G), or simply refusing to function until the network is set up.
2) That's still a lot of potentially crash-prone crud that's running. Better to just buy a Sceptre or maybe a large computer monitor, and have nothing running that isn't dedicated to "get pixels into eyeballs".
If this model of "theft of service" is legally enforceable, then significant swaths of this industry are engaging in false advertising and possibly full-on fraud by not making this agreement they're entering into clear to customers prior to their purchase of the device
From an ethical perspective, you will never convince me to feel bad about any "theft" of this kind, and this kind of dilution of concepts like "theft" and "crime" is likely responsible for the emotional valence of those terms reading a lot less significantly negative to people
I'm not saying that you should feel bad about it. What I am saying is that the manufacturers won't feel bad about fighting you on this issue, and coming up with ways to force you to see the advertisements they want you to see, and turn over the data they want on you.
It's a principle I'll call Kellner's Law: If a company makes a product or service available free or at a discount by involving advertisers, from the company's perspective that creates an implicit contractual obligation on the customer's part to see the ads; and any attempt to take advantage of the freebie/discount whilst avoiding the ads will be considered a form of theft, legitimizing any technical or legal means at the company's disposal to force customers to see the ads, or else to withdraw service from those who try to avoid them. Kellner's Law explains a lot of corporate behaviors in this space, including crackdowns by YouTube and other sites on Web-based ad blockers.
I named it for Jamie Kellner, a television executive who when TiVo (which famously allowed skipping ads in television programs recorded to the device) came out, said "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots" and that skipping ads with a device like TiVo was "actually stealing programming".
I opened mine up and soldered the wifi antenna leads together, should stop that problem :)
What? I don't buy things based on ads, it's all fast food and cheap slop. Does that mean I stole my TV?
So much engineering effort wasted with zero benefit to society.
Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.
Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).
> Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.
If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.
Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.
Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.
Lying requires the speaker to know that what he is saying is false. That’s what the word means.
By all means castigate Brin all you like but if you want to show he lied in this instance you have to show it was always a lie.
When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut.
As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I a big fat liar?
Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was yourself, and not millions of people.
Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath because they aged 15 years?
If he does, did he lie when he swore the oath?
If he lied when he swore the oath, is he still a doctor?
BTW, I like this game: 'endlessly avoid making a point'. The winner is the person who gets the other one to end up questioning something that is required for a shared reality -- thus effectively admitting they might as well be arguing with themselves.
In my opinion your question is unanswerable because if he lied when he swore the oath he was never a doctor.
Can you explain how your question connects to the rest of thread? I can explain the thread if you don’t understand it, as you admit.
Please do explain because if you are trying to make a point it is escaping me.
> just a lie from the start
Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.
And apologists are sometimes just that, too.
no, money seems to only change people for the worse. the rich ones who are good were good all along.
You could probably say the same of engineers/scientists that are employed by wall street or google/facebook/surveillance-advertising businesses.
Could and would
Ad revenue means tvs priced for less than they ought to be, it's a trade-off for consumers. You could quibble about the externalities but it's ridiculous to suggest there's no upside, for anyone. If that were true they wouldn't sell.
It's about as fair as burning own money to sell at loss to undermine competition I'm afraid.
You can't claim something is a benefit for consumers if the consumers are not offered a competing product without the predatory features for more money. Let's put a 'dumb' TV on the market and regulate that 'smart' TV boxes have to say 'this is cheaper because we make most of our profit from it by screenshoting what you watch 100 times a second and selling it to the highest bidder' and see what the market thinks about it.
If the demand is strong enough, there will be. No one leaves money on the table. As it stands, it's deemed too risky.
I'd like another querty productivity phone as good as the BB curve 9320 or Q10 was, and willing to pay, but it probably won't happen.
Also if you buy a TV with no ads or other predatory features, then they push a software update that adds them. You can hardly say the customer was a "rational actor" who made an informed choice if you change their property after you sold it to them.
Under end-stage capitalism, the one and only thing driving the market is maximal extraction of all conceivable value within a financial quarter. There are no other concerns. The market inherently cannot consider any other consequences or benefits beyond short term gains at any cost.
Flowers can’t be eaten. They’re just for someone to look at. Heck most people probably don’t even look at them and buy it as a part of a ritual or formality. Does it mean the flower industry is of no benefit to society?
Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.
This isn’t some flowers that actual humans enjoy, it’s fucking spying and it’s ad industry bullshit. Don’t try and put lipstick on a pig.
Yeah, but people who grow or sell flowers are not on the same level as the very very good engineers who develop these dystopian systems. The people in the advertising industry who make these systems could absolutely do more good for society in a different field.
This is an example of the broken window fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)
It's a curious thing, though. We have this idea that economic activity with consent is beneficial, and without consent it's theft and harmful. But this is a rule of thumb. The vast majority of things people do are - variously - pointless, inefficient, sentimental, superstitious, idle, crazy, and otherwise indefensible except by the reasoning that it's our right to do what we like with what we own, what we've earned and paid for. This we call wealth, and having it makes us feel happy and secure, but to actually centrally analyze it and assess its usefulness would be a bad thing. That would only make its value evaporate. We want to be free to do dumb things, and not to be told.
I would argue that aggregated, anonymous viewership data is a net positive to society, as it helps content creators better cater to demand
And I would argue that this very quickly becomes a race to the bottom, where the viewing of mass produced trash accelerates because "that's what people want to watch" becomes "we'll flood the market with cheap mass produced bullshit" which immediately becomes "people love watching bullshit and our stats say so!"
I also don't believe for a single second, based on their past records, that Sony, or LG, or whoever, are actually properly anonymising this data
“Reality TV” is a prime example of racing to the bottom of mass produced trash.
It also creates an echo chamber effect, X is popular so we make more X.
Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop.
Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich richer.
Also somewhat related: https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-people-content-creators/
No,it leads to content which is attention grabbing, not better. They are not the same thing.
> content creators better cater to demand
That's actually the perfect description of why 'content creators' aren't called artists. They're not creative, they're regurgitative.
Society needs not faded, watered down, muted copies of originals. It needs more originals to inspire more creativity.
Originality is an art unto itself.
What you are right about, however, is the profit inherent in bland copies, which means there's a market out there consisting of dumb, easily satisfied cattle, to be milked by the lazily regurgitative bottom feeders that know only 'what's trending' and have said subscribe! more often than they've had hot meals. Those saviours of society.
https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-discusses...
Question about anonymous data is well, why not do it where the content originates? Sale of discs? Rental instances online. Number of times something was streamed... Why does it have to happen on end device, when it is entirely possible at source.
broadcast has no return path
Probably more importantly these days, neither do companies have access to data on their competitors. Your TV manufacturer will happily sell them some, though.
I’ve worked extensively with ACR technology in an applied setting. Happy to answer any questions
It’s often suggested in HN comments that keeping a TV disconnected from the LAN will soon be insufficient to prevent data transmission, because companies are on the cusp of including subsidized cell modems in the devices. Have you ever encountered this idea, and is it actually realistic?
What types of titles can ACR match to?
Can it do foreign titles?
Adult titles?
Can it OCR onscreen text, e.g. a computer desktop?
Can it identify video conferences?
Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people?
> Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people?
Thats precisely what’s happening and it’s nothing new. The only difference here is that the TV is the input vs your browsing habits.
I read somewhere - I think in a previous thread, about the New Scientist version of this story, where somebody posted text from a site selling ACR services - that the real interest lies in empirical measurement of what adverts you're seeing, and the context that you see them in is of only secondary interest. I guess the ads you see could be matched up to what you buy. It's an "are our adverts working on this person?" question (and thus "can we show that our advertising service is worth buying"), more than a question of "what advert do we send this person next?"
What happened to stop you answering, were you kidnapped by LG?
Could ACR be used against its creators by creating a tool to detect and automatically block-out advertisements? (e.g. via an HDMI pass-through) There should be enough tell-tale signals (text, sound, number of scene changes, etc.) to distinguish advertisements from non-ad content.
Why do they (LG and Samsung) not fingerprint things streamed from a phone, but do fingerprint anything coming over HDMI? And why do they fingerprint their own FAST services, don't they know what they showed already?
I'm trying to find more information about these 2 companies fingerprinting or hashing anything coming over HDMI. Do you have sources? I thought disconnecting my smart TV from internet to be enough to stop the transmission of any ACR data. My concern would be if they store any ACR data locally and queue it for data collection vs if they stream it.
It is in the paper:
"We find that: (1) ACR network traffic exists when watching linear TV and when using smart TV as an external display using HDMI"
But also that they send it in batches every 15 seconds (Samsung) or every minute (LG). The question is whether an offline TV will lie in wait to send all the data it collected in one massive batch, when and if it gets online. That wasn't tested.
Might be easier to aggregate data if it’s all coming in in a similar way?
Coming back to this, I see it's in the paper. There's a mention of copyright, and then:
> Netflix prefers to have ACR deactivated during its streaming “in order to preserve the integrity of its subscribers viewing experiences and maintain sole control over measurement of its viewership” (Verance, 2020). The same reasoning applies to FAST channels, which LG and Samsung consider to be ”aggregator apps” (Wolk, 2023), where providers may have agreements restricting ACR usage.
In other words, FAST comes from other providers, who may complain. Random content over HDMI doesn't. However, this doesn't explain why they ignore video streamed from phones (tablets, laptops, etc) wirelessly.
How does this interact with DRM? Does ACR still work if HDCP is being used?
HDCP is stripped when a stream comes into the device and readded when it leaves, you need to do this for anything more complicated than dumb passthrough. (unless you're using that Bunnie Huang trick to add encrypted data without decrypting for some reason)
How long until I get revenge on this world full of immoral people?
how much this data can sell for?
How do I disable it and make sure it stays disabled?
Are there any brands that are known for respecting privacy more than others?
When this conversation has come up in the past, I've seen people recommend [0] business displays [1]. They are more expensive, of course, given that they are not subsidized by advertising.
[0] ex https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24666968
[1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tvs/commercial-tvs/pcmcat160199...
Anime doesn't come in 4K, I have no real reason not to get an early 2010s TV before all this garbage, Sony, LG, Samsung, etc. All for about 100 USD, 200 USD for near enough whatever screen size I'd want for a device right at the bottom of the bathtub curve.
Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV or a PC for best results.
> Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV
How does that square with "privacy"? Google is an adtech company that makes money on tracking our usage patterns, Chromecast requires logging in, there is no "privacy" around these devices at all.
> Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV or a PC for best results.
If you already want an off the shelf solution at least get an Apple TV instead of a Google product? At least it’s not an advertising company then.
https://618media.com/en/blog/revenue-projections-for-apple-s...
That’s a very different thing. These are basically sponsored placements in App Store search results based on keywords and not targeted ads based on tracking or cookies.
(That’s also why they are often very bad and not relevant, a common complaint from app developers)
Any brand works if you hook it up to an Apple TV and don't allow the TV itself to connect to the internet (outside of first time setup for software updates I guess).
That's concerning. To be clear, I once worked on a company that developed an audio-based ACR technology to be used in conjunction with a secondary device that users would turn on at their will. Anything more invasive would have been substantially challenging in legal aspects so that was the status quo more than 10 years ago. So it's new to me that not only ACR is somehow pervasive in "smart" devices but also they even don't care whether they are really being used as a television (which has no other interaction mechanism in principle, and ACR is not only for ads).
Surveillance capitalism continues to crush people's privacy, and I don't think the incentive to collect personal data will ever go away. Seriously someone needs to give the big middle finger to Samsung and LG because I want my dumb TVs back.
A 32" computer monitor is awful similar to a dumb TV from 20 years back. Projectors too.
It may happen. I think at present there is too little demand for comparatively expensive tvs that respect privacy. The tech is in a phase of diminishing returns, as televisions from over a decade ago still suit most people fine, and don't break that easily. Tech people were just turning off features they don't like (until, of course, that's no longer possible). But alongside the price-point, manufacturers are also playing a game of chicken expecting everyone to continue purchasing despite invasive features. At least among tech-oriented people it's possible that sales will slow down, but that might not matter enough for their bottom line to offer an alternative. There may be room for a competitor to try selling boutique tvs, but it's risky. "the market provides", but the demand needs to be strong enough.
Does this send screenshots when you're on HDMI? Wouldn't that be corporate espionage since most tech workers are from home now and lots use a small 4K TV for their PC?
Yes. Also casts from phones and tablets. 100 times a second for LG and 2 times a second for Samsung, according to the paper.
A reminder that the existence of the advertising industry is a tax that drives up the cost of everything that you buy, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that does not actually improve the product in any way, and yet must be recouped by increasing the price of the product.
So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
In addition to making everything you buy cost more, it also leads to lots of people buying a lot of things they don't really need (or want, after the rush of buying another piece of crap wears off)
Yes. Someone should research the effect of banning ads on the health of our planet.
Also...
Some TV operating system manufacturers give away their OS to TV manufacturers, and in some cases they even pay TV manufacturers to use their software.
Some streaming service companies pay the TV manufacturers to have a shortcut/launch button on the physical remote.
> A reminder that the existence of the advertising industry is a tax that drives up the cost of everything that you buy, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that does not actually improve the product in any way, and yet must be recouped by increasing the price of the product
I am not going to try to argue that advertising is good or anything, but I don't think your economic argument is accurate.
If a company didn't have to spend anything on advertising, they wouldn't use that money to improve their product or to reduce the price; the money would go towards profit.
So many people seem to think that prices are set at "expense + fixed profit margin = price" but that is not how any company sets their prices. The ONLY reason a business is going to lower prices is because they think that is the way to increase their profit. They aren't going to lower prices just because some cost goes away.
The idea is that they would have to spend that money on improving the good/service or reducing the price in order to compete. Currently more money goes to competing for your attention than on competing on merit.
In an efficient market, competition would drive prices down to reach quite thin profit margins. Of course there is all sorts of friction, change in conditions, inertia, upfront costs, risk etc that reality isn't ideal.
If advertising is giving an expected edge over competition bigger than price decrease, then the advertising will be used in sort of an arms race that could have been a competition in giving the best product for the least money instead.
Still, even if there is no immediate price decrease for the customer, I would be much more satisfied if all the money went to the maker(s) of the product and well-investing shareholders than someone who provides no value and could have been working on something productive instead.
In the case of television screens, the net profit margins on sales of these devices are in the single-digit percentages. Fairly thin, around 4-7%. Higher-end products, such as cutting-edge flagship products (e.g. 100"+ MicroLED television screens) will have higher margins, but lower production yields, and orders of magnitude lower sales volume. These products don't need to be replaced year after year, and most buyers are not selecting a product based on the technical specifications and performance, rather the screen-size per dollar (or whatever currency used) and other factors such as aesthetic appeal of the device in the home environment. The average lifetime, before replacement, of a television screen in North America is somewhere around 5-7 years, and you don't need one in every room of your home or living space.
The commodification of screens from both the production side (i.e. newer entrants to the market from Chinese manufacturers) and from the content portal side (i.e. Roku, Google TV, Fire TV, etc) is a major strategic problem for the television brands you are probably most familiar with. The forementioned examples of content portals are coming from companies that are fundamentally based around advertising, and the companies that were traditionally about manufacturing realized that the advertising revenue opportunity was too good to give up. They are trying to grow their revenue, and profitability, and see that they won't be able to do so from their original core businesses. This is also why you're seeing all of these "FAST" (Free, Ad-supported Streaming Television) services popping up from the tv manufacturers themselves.
Vizio, for example, was a value-oriented producer of televisions and related products. In 2021, as Vizio became a public company, they disclosed that they make more than twice the profit from their advertising/service business than their device sales (https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-adver...). Walmart is now acquiring Vizio for that business and the opportunity to collect customer data (https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2024/02/20/walmart-agrees...).
Roku is another good focused example because they are a publicly traded company and you can analyze their income statements and business model. Their hardware devices are basically being sold at cost or at a loss so they can seed the market and create an audience (i.e. their inventory) for their high-margin advertising services business.
Google and Amazon also want a large piece of this pie. Apple is starting to show that they want advertising money too.
We are also seeing cases where the television devices themselves can be produced cheap enough to be given away to users that opt into advertising (e.g. Telly: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/15/23721674/telly-free-tv-st...). When this dynamic is economically viable (i.e. give away the hardware, make the money via ads), you can see how big of a problem traditional television device manufacturers have.
Running targeted advertising on devices allows manufacturers to price devices lower by recouping lost sale revenue from the advertising stream.
In other words, an advertising dollar doesn't disappear: it's paid to someone.
> an advertising dollar doesn't disappear: it's paid to someone.
Window breaking gangs could make a similar same claim about their activity boosting GDP might they not?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Someone used this window breaking analogy recently here on HN - I can't remember why it came up or who said it, but is this a common framing?
I do remember it being about how a window maker paying people to break windows not being a productive contribution to GDP.
Just thought it was curious seeing it again.
> but is this a common framing?
Yes a common misconception about economics so much so it has a Wikipedia page to explain it.
Oh duh, thanks. I somehow did not see your link when I originally posted.
> to someone
... I'd rather not pay for the "service" they're providing.
> So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
Can a capitalist society operate without advertising? How are people to learn about products and services that are available? Yet today poorly targets ads waste the time of everyone involved. If ads could be made relevant without invading your privacy would you be against that?
I'll list three kinds of ethnical advertising:
1. If I have an interest in a field (say, electronics) and then I attend a conference or gathering that's relevant to that field (say, CES), and then you buy a booth at that conference in order to hawk your wares, that's A-OK. The crucial difference is that I willingly understand the context--I'm going to be going to a place that's all about having people sell me things--and that advertisers are not running roughshod over a space where they don't belong. Consider this "pull-based" advertising rather than the "push-based" advertising where ads get shoved in your face every second of the day everywhere you go, even when you're just trying to live your life.
2. Organic word-of-mouth referrals. In an online, AI-infested world, the "organic" part is increasingly hard to come by, but if someone that I trusts tells me that a product is good, that's great and welcome. Crucially, their reputation with me is on the line if they turn out to be wrong or financially compromised.
3. Simple indication of presence. If you have a shop, you're allowed to have a sign on the front with the name of your shop... within reason. Don't push it. Billboards should be banned.
100% agree with your three points.
When you "visit" Google / Facebook / YouTube / other online properties do you think you are "going to a place that's all about having people sell me things"?
Do you mean when an entirely new product category is invented and I didn't even know it's useful to me? Because that's kinda rare.
In other cases such as buying a shoe or a can of beer or a fridge or a car, I just go to the website or the physical store that sells it and I compare the products and buy the most suitable one.
This way purchases would be prompted by an actual need, like when my shoes are worn out, I look to buy new ones instead of it being pushed on me through ads when I don't even need it.
Usually the existence of the ad doesn't mean that it's the best in its category. Why would it be in my interest to be following ads instead of my own research?
Also this gotcha is decades out of date. Today's ads are rarely about the features or suitability of the actual product. Instead they sell a vibe, a lifestyle feeling, they create positive emotional associations in ways orthogonal to the product's attributes. Think Coca Cola with celebrities etc. After all, how would I otherwise know I need a can of coke if the trendy singer didn't tell me about it, right?
I generally find that the ads I see are for things that I definitely don't want and shouldn't purchase, and it's just them pouring bucks into the effort to get in front of my face and wear me down.
Consider that you should never accept cold-call sales or offers under typical circumstances; I make notes on the ads I see in order to blacklist them, essentially.
The good deals are found by my seeking them out, doing research, asking questions. Knowing a brand reputation apart from marketing. Discerning things like corporate culture, attitude, politics, intended market or audience.
So many products and services are made on the basis of shoveling crap to make a profit, or supporting some cause or crusade, and the more I can pierce the veil, the better I feel about where my money's going.
> How are people to learn about products and services that are available?
Search. Easier said than done, thanks to SEO and business models like Google. So maybe I should say "paid search". We get what we pay for.
If you do not know a problem is a problem why search for a solution?
If you do not know a product / service exists why would you search for it?
If "search" is your answer what do you suppose advertisers are doing? Are they not searching for customers?
Advertising is an expensive search with many externalities on society. These externalities are wasteful hence the search for a better way to do it. Google / Facebook / ... I think are funded by solving this problem.
I’ve been advertised something that actually removes a problem I know about in my life, just for made up “problems”.
If I don’t know a product or service exists, why do I need it?
My life is fine as it is, I don’t need stupid advertisements for stuff that won’t enrich it.
> If I don’t know a product or service exists, why do I need it?
Do you not purchase things / services you do not need?
> My life is fine as it is, I don’t need stupid advertisements for stuff that won’t enrich it.
How might you reply to a someone from a few thousand or few hundred or even few dozen years ago that has your attitude? Might you be tempted to advertise to them what they are missing? Would they not be interested?
I do purchase things I don’t need, and I’d like to do less of that. Anyone who was happy many years ago was successful in life, happiness and satisfaction is important. Your arguments do not convince me that the toxic wasteland that is advertising is useful at all.
> If you do not know a problem is a problem why search for a solution?
Exactly, I would NOT search for a solution. No sale. Less consumption.
In most cases if you do not know a problem is a problem, then it is actually NOT a problem.[1]
Advertisers' jobs are to convince you otherwise. e.g. You need our pill. You need our gadget. You need our clothing or cosmetic. Advertising does not care about your best interest. Advertising tries to make a sale and advertising is considered successful if a sale is made even if no problem was solved.
[1] There are some exceptions. Serious medical conditions, for example. I don't think most people object to altruistic advertising campaigns to educate people about genuine health problems and their solutions. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here.
> No sale. Less consumption.
What makes "Less consumption" a good goal? What are biospheres if not cycles of consumption? When our planet becomes sterilized due to some disaster will you celebrate "Less consumption"? Obviously not. EFFICIENT consumption is a good goal so we maximize what we desire and minimize the undesirables.
> Advertising does not care about your best interest. Advertising tries to make a sale and advertising is considered successful if a sale is made even if no problem was solved.
Yes. In a capitalist economy all act in self interest. This is clearly s bad system except if you have experience living under other systems and there the direction of migration should be a clue about what people prefer.
> How are people to learn about products and services that are available?
Remember Yellow Pages?
And if that is not good enough, perhaps you can opt in to an advertising service that shows you ads when you want to see them (as opposed to when they want to show them to you).
Off topic: Anyone knows how a document like this is created? I find the layout very appealing. - In MS Word?
The typeface is Computer Modern which indicates they likely used LaTeX.
https://www.latex-project.org/
LaTeX
You'll take my 2010 Sony Bravia panel over my dead body.
lol, 2010 LCD with edge or a couple zone local dimming... Don't worry, no one is going to try and take your varying degrees of grey levels from you.
Url changed from https://www.feistyduck.com/newsletter/issue_117_smart_tvs_ar..., which points to this.