LG and Roku are tracking everything we watch
Wrapped in a Snuggie, I like to binge on reruns of "The Golden Girls" all by myself. Except coque samsung s7 guess I'm not really alone.
Once every few minutes, my TV beams out a report about what's on my screen to Samsung, the company that made it. Chances are, your TV is watching you, too, through a few nosy pixels on the screen.
Ever wondered why TV sets are getting so cheap Manufacturing efficiency plays a role. But to paraphrase political commentator James Carville, it's the data, stupid. TVs have joined the ranks of websites, apps and credit cards in the lucrative business of harvesting and sharing your information. Americans spend an average of 3 hours in front of a TV each day, according to eMarketer, the market research company. Your TV records may not contain sensitive search queries or financial data, but that history is a window to your interests, personality, joys and embarrassments.
And they're grabbing it because, legally speaking, tens of millions of us gave our permission.
Lately I've been on the hunt for what happens to my data behind the cloak of computer code and privacy policies. So I ran an experiment on my own Internet connected Samsung, as well as new "smart TV" models from four of the best selling brands: Samsung, TCL Roku TV, Vizio and LG.
[Help Desk: Ask our tech columnist a question]I set up each smart TV as most people do: by tapping "OK" with the remote to each on screen prompt. Then using software from Princeton University called the IoT Inspector, I watched how coque samsung j3 2016 pingouin each model transmitted data. iphone 11 case Lots went flying from streaming apps and their advertising partners. But even when I switched coque samsung galaxy j3 2016 fantaisie to a live broadcast signal, I could see each TV sending out reports as often as once per second.
When tracking is coque iphone xs one piece active, some TVs record and send out everything that crosses the pixels on your screen. It doesn't matter whether the source is cable, an app, your DVD coque samsung galaxy s8 plus rose player or streaming box.
Many TV makers say tracking what we watch helps them coque lumiere iphone xs provide helpful coque samsung galaxy a5 2016 k7 galaxy gardien personalized recommendations. Right, and people coque samsung j1 nike read Playboy for the articles. TV tracking is mostly about filling coque iphone xs max silicone rose in a missing chunk of data about our lives for advertisers and media companies. I tracked down some of the firms that buy it from TV makers. They told me it makes TVs claire's coque samsung galaxy s7 edge more like Facebook, where content can be measured and ads can be better targeted and tracked for performance.
And just as on Facebook, things can get creepy. Data firms use your TV history to link up what you watch with what you do on your phone, tablet and laptop even what you buy in stores. collier argent coque iphone It's as if your TV can unhook itself from the wall and follow you around.
Two years after the Federal Trade Commission fined a TV maker for privacy violations, tens of millions of Americans are still using TVs that track what we watch. coque samsung law. (Congress passed the Video Privacy Protection Act after reporters published Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental records.) In 2017, the Federal Trade Commission rebuked TV maker Vizio for being deceptive and unfair in tracking customer screens. The FTC told Vizio and the entire TV industry to be upfront and to make it so that customers had to opt in.
Don't recall opting in to TV tracking Me, neither. Two and a half years after the FTC took action, new TVs include more small print requiring you to click "agree" when you set them up. bijoux pas cher But the majority of American smart TVs still have tracking turned on, according to the TV companies.
TVs were supposed coque samsung a5 homme to be a privacy regulation success story. Now they're looking more like a cautionary tale.
A fingerprint for your big screen coque iphone xs max portefeuille How does a TV watch you back Think of it less as a dumb box and more like a 65 inch computer.
Trying to measure TV habits has long challenged the industry. Market research firm Nielsen coque iphone xs message famously signs up people to panels, but they're just a sample. Streaming services such as Netflix keep meticulous records about what we watch but are limited to their own product.
A decade ago, the arrival of smart TVs with Internet connections coque samsung galaxy s5 one piece and apps gave an engineer named Zeev Neumeier a new idea: have the TV itself report on everything that crosses its screen. "We built a better mousetrap," says coque samsung galaxy s3 zelda Neumeier, now the senior vice president of technology at Inscape, the data division of Vizio. It's called "automatic content recognition," or ACR.
Neumeier, whose company is under orders from the FTC to be transparent, was the only industry leader willing to sit down in front of a TV and explain how his company tracks me. (Others, including LG's ACR provider Nielsen and Sony partner Samba TV, wouldn't coque samsung galaxy s6 amazone even answer questions on email.)
Once per second, Neumeier told me, Vizio TVs capture a fingerprint of what's on the screen. It looks like two dozen square bundles of pixels scattered around the screen, which the TV converts into a string of numbers. iphone 11 case That string is what the TV beams back to Vizio, along with identifiers for your TV.
Vizio compares the fingerprint with a database of known content like Shazam for video. The result is a second by second log of your TV time, which the coque samsung s8 paris firm sells to about 30 different companies.
(Not everything you watch gets included. coque huawei Vizio doesn't keep track when you're using the Netflix app, at coque samsung galaxy grand prime fairy tail the request of the streaming giant.)
Samsung said its ACR technology also uses fingerprints but declined to be more specific. coque iphone In my test lab, TVs including the Roku branded TCL model asked to be logged in with my email address and transmitted snapshots of my entire screen. Good thing I wasn't watching anything more embarrassing than "Golden Girls" reruns with Betty White.
Many of the TV companies say they aren't violating our privacy, because ACR data technically isn't "personally identifiable information." TVs, they say, are coque samsung a5 stylee shared by an entire household.
But the firms do collect, use and share one other important piece of identifying information: your TV's Internet Protocol address. iphone 11 case An IP address is your home's identity on the Internet, shared across all the gadgets you own (which are also gathering data about you). iphone case It's how they link coque samsung gt i8260 up what you see on TV with the rest of your life.
In The Washington Post's gadget lab, we tested the tracking built coque samsung s8 mickey into TVs from LG, coque samsung j7 licorne Samsung, TCL Roku and Vizio. (Jonathan Baran/The Washington Post)
The data trail ACR data reveals a lot more than what's trending or popular. It's a tool for marketers to build a trail from what you binge to what you buy.
With so much more detail about who's watching what, advertisers can use ACR to better target messages. Samsung and Roku TVs comb the data to identify household interests and then insert ads based on them right on your TV screen. (That's why those two firms say they don't "sell" our personal information they just make use of it, instead.) Who knows what judgments they'll make if they see you watch a lot of reality TV, CNBC or both.
Other ACR firms, like Sony's partner Samba TV, use the data to re target ads you see on TV across your computer coque en verre trempe iphone xs max and phone.