Gregory's ServerThe trend of building surveillance into all new smart TVs is "incredibly invasive and little understood,” EFF’s Jacob Hoffman-Andrews told @arstechnica. "Nobody wants a snooping and snitching television, but lately that's all you can buy.” https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/tv-industrys-ads-tracking-obsession-is-turning-your-living-room-into-a-store/
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33 comments
@skrrp @eff @arstechnica It cost over $100 to get a monitor with TV size screen. $50 just to get one that supports HDMI. I went shopping at pawn shops thinking it's cheap but nope. Goodwill also had nothing to sell. People are buying what they can.  @eff @arstechnica perhaps lobby the router industry to incorporate tech that blocks traffic from these devices? Encourage DD-WRT to make ad blocking a first class feature that can be adopted by hardware manufacturers. @eff @arstechnica A small passthrough WAP/wireless bridge/ethernet device that automatically blocks all traffic except desired streaming services would be HUGE. @distractal @eff @arstechnica
I think you can still buy "Commercial Digital Display" TV's which don't include this adware for decent prices. They key is to buy ones that are intended for digital signage. although i suspect those days are coming to an end pretty quickly.  @float13 @eff @arstechnica 1984 was required reading in my high school in the 1960s. It was one of the books that changed my brain. @old_hippie @float13 @eff @arstechnica  @eff @arstechnica I gave away a SmartTV that I won in a contest. I don't want any "smart" things in my home. The only smart device I use is my phone & it's an older model that I'm refusing to upgrade til it dies or I lose it.  @eff @arstechnica   @eff my girlfriend and I were just in BestBuy this weekend and wondering if it's even possible to buy a "dumb" TV off the shelf anymore. They had one 720P dumb TV, and that was the only offering. Especially if you want a large screen TV, your only option is spyware nowadays. So I suppose the next option is to find one you can jailbreak and install a less invasive OS on.  @alice_watson I'd be very curious how much of that can be blocked at the DNS level, given the relative proliferation of Pi-Hole. Still not a solution by any means, given the vast majority of TV owners don't and won't have access to such blocking, but I'm curious nonetheless.  This was also a solution that came into my mind. I think NextDNS has a dedicated filterlist for smartTVs @xgranade I have a Pi-Hole set up to filter my network traffic at home, and it's glorious. I see almost zero ads on all my other devices, but some crap still comes through on my TV. @alice_watson We use pi-hole as well, with its upstream set to a local DoH proxy so that our ISP can't read any DNS queries going across our network. We don't use a recursive provider, so the upstream from the DoH proxy is still able to see queries, but at least they're in the EU and so will have some stronger privacy protections. Really interesting that some of the TV ads get through, though. I wonder if that's the gravity lists not capturing that, or if they use a common domain to hide.  I don’t know your specific objectives, but why not just never connect the TV to WiFi? That’s what I do with my LG, otherwise it’s a terrible experience. @alice_watson you’ll get no shame from me. I do my walled-garden streaming with a Roku or an AppleTV. Same sin, less ads. @amd my PiHole takes care of most ads and tracking that can be blocked with DNS filtering, and my VPN and browser plugins take care of the remainder. The issue is no browser plugins on my TV, so it misses those ones. @eff @arstechnica “Smart” everything seems to be how it’s going. When we did a home reno recently, we went out of our way buy appliances we liked but that weren’t made to connect to the internet.* Had we needed to settle on any, we simply wouldn’t have connected them to our router. *This included a “smart” dishwasher. How we ever survived for decades with dishwashing technology that wouldn’t ping your phone with a text that the cycle is done, or whatever, I’ll never know. 🙄 @eff @arstechnica The telescreens from Orwell's 1984 were not supposed to be inspirational. @eff @arstechnica which is why we are not buying anything new. No smart TVs in this house. @eff @arstechnica @eff @arstechnica Setting aside the surveillance, smart TVs have become more cumbersome to use. They’re slow, constantly ask for updates (what am I agreeing to before I watch Jeopardy?), and mine is just buggy. User experience with the appliance itself is just bad. But on plus side, I watch TV less and spend more time on hobbies. @eff @arstechnica As others have said, buy a regular smart TV and just don't allow it on the internet. If it requires a connection in order to function (such as Google) don't buy that model of television. Lastly, I've had issues with mixing PiHole and TV boxes like Google TV and Apple. The PiHole seems to prevent them from remembering which episode I'm on. Anyone else experience this? This article is about TVs, but now I'm wondering if screen projectors for "home cinema" also spy on you? |
@eff @arstechnica so don't buy a TV. Buy a monitor and watch downloads on it. Look ma, no ads!