Televisions that can stream platforms like Hulu or Max usually come loaded with technology that collects information on what viewers are watching, and buyers consent to have their viewing tracked when they open their new TV and click through terms of service agreements. Sometimes, data firms can connect those viewing habits to a voter’s phone or laptop via their IP address, promising a trove of information about an individual and the ability to track them across screens.
Other times, firms focus on dividing households into groups based on what they’re watching, how they use their TVs and how many campaign ads they’re seeing, which is a boon to political campaigns eager to target specific groups of voters. Connecting this data to voter files is increasingly a focus — a move that adds individual voting habits into the mix.
While I get your point, the TV isn’t nice because of its app features. If it’s a nice TV it’s because of its display panel and features like upscaling, interpolation, etc., and it’s being subsidized by those built-in apps and tracking functionality.
By purchasing a nice TV, never using the built-in apps, and never connecting the TV to the Internet (or better yet connecting it to a segregated VLAN and dropping literally all traffic to/from the TV), you’re costing the company money on that TV set. Or probably more accurately you’re like the credit card user that maximizes their point rewards while paying off the balance every paycheck, you’re profiting off people who are in debt to their credit card company for whatever reason.
To be clear, I have a G series LG OLED that is not only in its own VLAN with no traffic allowed in or out, but I drop all DNS that isn’t coming from my pihole at the WAN port on my edge router, I watch stuff from a secondary device, and most everything I watch is pirated and streamed locally anyway, so I’m definitely subsidizing my entertainment with the privacy invasion of others. If I could get an OLED tv without any of the built in OS stuff I absolutely would, and would be willing to pay more for a SKU with that stuff stripped out, but afaik that’s just not possible.
Honestly, if I’m costing the company that made my TV money just because I refuse to let it track me, all the better. They deserve it for trying to crab that shit up my ass in the first place!
If you can’t produce a product without subsidizing it by pumping it full of data tracking nonsense then you don’t deserve to be a fucking company.
Fuck that and you know it. They only produce this garbage because they get more value out of your data not because they can’t fucking manufacture a good affordable tv.
99% of people will buy the cheaper TV with tracking, it probably not sustainable to sell the expensive one without. This stuff just needs to be banned