Smart TVs have been classified as one of the most invasive technologies to enter our homes. We add that any smart technology could be painted with the same black brush.
If you are old enough to remember the ’60s, you used to fill out a Neilsen TV rating book. You were told it was to help TV networks show more appropriate programs, but it was actually used to sell more advertising for popular shows.
With the advent of the internet, you were invited to place an OzTAM (owned by 7, 9, 10 networks) Neilsen ‘black box’ on your free-to-air dumb TV that recorded who is watching (you pressed a button), the time, duration and date, whether each TV was on/off, and the television audio (sound). Behind the scenes, a sophisticated ‘audio/video content matching’ process revealed what TV show you were watching.
But things started to get more complicated with the advent of VCRs, hard disk recorders, DVDs, and Blu-ray players. Then, Foxtel launched over Telstra’s HFC cable in 1995, and TV data collection became very hit-and-miss.
Enter Free-to-Air Digital TV 2001
On 1 January 2001, DVB-T digitally transmitted the previous Analog TV channels. We were told it was to stop ghosting and poor reception, but the real reason was to open a Pandora’s box for gathering viewing data. DVB-T was two-way, meaning it could transmit TV content and receive data from the TV.
Let’s just say every digital TV became a window into our TV viewing habits. Everything we watched on TV could be reported back to the TV stations. However, technology had not reached the stage where it could do much more than guide advertisers on where to place ads.
Enter Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) 2011
TV manufacturers started including an ACR chip to collect media metadata (audio and video). The information was sold to advertising and data brokers for whatever purpose they could find.
One of the earliest ACR providers was Samba TV, which is still available on Sony, Panasonic, and many other TVs (you can disable it). Suffice it to say that every TV manufacturer uses the chip to collect viewing data.
By the way, ACR is not just for TVs but is an integral part of smartphones, audio/video players, and e-book content players. The following short video is worth looking at.
Still, not enough data – greedy TV makers and streaming services want more. Enter Smart TVs
The first real smart, internet-connected TVs appeared in 2015. LG and Samsung were among the first. Now, the only way to buy a dumb TV is to pull the internet plug! Still, you will have program metadata sucked up over DVB-T by the TV stations, Audience measurement companies and last but not least, the TV maker.
The key identifier is that smart TVs are mini-computers with memory and storage running an operating system (LG WebOS, Samsung Tizen, Android TV, Hisense VIDAA, Visio, Roku, Kodi, and many more Android TV forks (customisations).
An operating system can do almost anything, which is scary because the TV maker controls it, not the content creators, digital TV or streaming services, or app creators.
A large proportion of the ‘Other’ above are brands using Android TV forks, which numerically makes it the number one streaming platform worldwide.
The first comprehensive report on TV privacy
The US Centre for Digital Democracy’s project on connected television (CTV) 48-page report is sobering, so we will summarise it.
Smart TVs (connected television) have become a central node in the expanding online digital marketplace, linking viewers to a vast infrastructure of sophisticated data analytics, monitoring, and ad-targeting systems.
To understand the report, stop thinking of Smart TVs as a screen (that monitors you) and start thinking of them as a way to access potentially tens of thousands of digital channels. For example:
Paid subscription channels: Netflix, Prime, Paramount, Disney+, Stan and Foxtel
FAST (Free Advertiser-Supported TV): Digital TV like 7, 9, 10, and SBS. More recently, TV makers like LG, Samsung, TCL, Hisense, Amazon Fire, and others have implemented their FAST content channels.
Video-on-demand (VOD) channels may or may not be paid, advertising-funded or free as a public service.
Free-to-air linear TV (FTA) using the TV antenna. These are advertising-supported and taxpayer-funded ABC and SBS.
The key issue is that regardless of whether you use free or paid content sources, masses of your data go back to faceless data brokers and programmatic advertising services.
The transformation of television in the digital era has taken place largely under the radar of policymakers and the public, even as concerns about internet privacy and social media have received extensive media coverage.
The fact that TV analytics companies can tell you things like gender, age group, geographic locations, time spent on the device, and exactly what you watch is just the tip of the personal privacy iceberg.
It is a conspiracy involving studios, networks, programmers, TV manufacturers, online platforms, data brokers, advertisers and technology companies. As we watch television, television watches us.
FAST is potentially a privacy problem
In this recessionary time, you can get a relatively inexpensive smart TV with, in most cases, hundreds of embedded FAST channels. FAST services now offer digital TV channels their services. 10Play uses Pluto TV; other established channels include Tubi and Amazon FreeVee.
Let’s say that you like boats and watch several boating-oriented FAST channels. The TV knows who you are and where you live; potentially, your data could result in a knock on the door from a boat dealer. Now, let’s say you watched illicit drug-oriented channels – ditto.
This is the beginning of interactive content, where you are part of the content and determine its outcomes.
FAST is becoming so large and uncontrollable that its app developers could feasibly do anything with the data, even infecting your TV OS and IoT (Internet of Things) connected to the same home Wi-Fi network.
Data collection moves beyond TVs
Personal data collection on TV is still more about what you watch. However, it is increasingly aggregated with social media data to create ‘identity graphs’ and other new data-mining technologies. This makes tracking and targeting individuals across the online and offline landscape possible. It is even more scary when you can link your TV ID to your mobile phone ID—just by casting content.
LiveRamp spun off from data giant Acxiom, is a major player in using CTV data for its RampID system. As the company explains, its people-based IDs make it possible to link individuals and households to the right digital identifiers, including cookies, mobile device IDs, Advanced TV IDs, and user accounts on social networks. As a result, we can match online and offline data with a high degree of speed and accuracy.
Data broker Experian explains, ‘Like cookies, cookieless IDs provide you with a comprehensive view of a consumer’s digital activity… that allows the advertising industry to maintain our understanding of consumers’ digital actions, helping to ensure we continue to generate smart, data-driven insights, targets, activation strategies, personalised experiences, and measurement and attribution’.
Buy a smart TV and keep paying
The value of your data to a TV maker is close to exceeding the net revenue made by making and selling TVs. This begs the question: Why don’t TV makers simply give us a device?
In fact, they are beginning to reduce TV purchase costs based on the revenue from your data. We don’t want to pick on any one manufacturer as they all indulge to similar degrees.
The Digital Democracy’s project on CTV gives a few examples (paraphrased):
LG
LG claims that its TV Audience Data Collection has been anonymised. The report found that the data categories it uses for precise audience targeting reveal an extensive, highly granular, and intimate amount of information that enables tracking and ad targeting at the individual viewer level when combined with contemporary identity technologies. This includes
Tune-in data (consumption of programming across linear and streaming channels)
Devices connected to the TV and Internet
Premium content that viewers pay for, along with favoured streaming apps
New subscriptions, activations, cancellations, series purchased
Whether someone plays games in the home (heavy or light video gamers)
What ads they are exposed to on channels or apps
Location data (zip code, geo-data for targeted activation & closed-loop attribution for foot traffic)
Samsung
Samsung (like LG) identifies what viewers watch on their TV and gathers data from a spectrum of channels, including linear TV, linear ads, Video Games, and Video on Demand. It can also determine which viewers are watching television in what language and the specific kinds of devices that connect to the set in each home.
Samba (Sony)
Samba (the original ACR) is part of over 24 global TV brands. It provides advertisers and media companies a ‘unified view of the entire consumer journey’ through its access to 111 million U.S. households and 517 million targetable devices. Its Samba ID-driven identity platform can, with 90% accuracy, reveal which phones, tablets, PCs and TVs belong to an individual. It boasts that it can identify households watching competitors’ ads and enable you to target those households on their digital devices. Samba’s partners include Disney, Amazon, LiveRamp and The Trade Desk. Its new Samba AI TV Genome system helps advertisers take advantage of real-time, second-by-second understanding of everything seen on-screen by a viewer, including actors, music, visual effects and objects to help generate contextually relevant ad experiences.
The report’s pages 22 and 23 provide an interesting overview of LG, Samsung, and Google data acquisitions.
When you buy a TV, do you consider its privacy policies first? No, of course not!
There are many more data harvesters. All claim their activities are entirely legal as users have agreed to TV terms of use and privacy policies.
Again, I’m not mentioning specific brands, but most have tens of thousands of words in nested policies that you cannot see before purchase nor print out for thorough analysis before you agree. Nested policies are dangerous as you can agree to something in one that automatically applies to all.
Most will not allow more than FTA TV use unless you sign your rights away. When we review TVs, we applaud those that don’t cripple the TV if you don’t sign. Google TV seems to be the least intrusive, which is ironic as it is one of the world’s largest programmatic advertising brokers. Samsung and LG insist on setting up an account even to download local streaming apps.
Then, each streaming app has thousands of words in privacy and use policies.
Sorry but AI is coming, and you will be royally screwed
Have you noticed that more TVs now have (or support) a webcam? Ostensibly, it allows you to video conference with family and friends. In reality, it has added facial recognition to the list of those watching.
Or more TVs support voice search through OK Google, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri or proprietary voice search like Samsung Bixby. You have just given all your data to those companies and their partners.
Or more TVs are becoming home automation hubs (Samsung SmartThings, LG ThinQ, Google Home), and now all that data goes to TV makers and their business partners.
Well, that is not the worst of it. Said companies are also beginning to use AI to link to the vast data lakes, with the result that they know more about you than even your Mum! You will face a tsunami of advertisements and interactive online shopping opportunities for stuff you did not know you needed. We are looking at you, Amazon Prime (why do you think it has a streaming service).
See Connected TV Marketing Association Project Halo, which is an effort to unify all TV OS data.
New AI examples
NBC Universal recently unveiled several commerce enhancements to advance shoppable television, including a new service called Virtual Concessions. In this service, viewers of highly anticipated sporting events or ready-to-binge movie marathons can purchase food, beverages, and other items to be delivered to their doorstep. NBCU, of course, makes its cut just like the delivery company, etc.
Disney+ is launching a native streaming shoppable ad format that encourages in-stream purchases. It will also spam your SMS and email with products that it feels you should buy to enrich its (not your) life.
CTV companies are also forming alliances with supermarkets and other retailers, drawing from extensive online and offline data, including TV viewing and shopping behaviours, to forge powerful new hybrid retail/media operations.
Racial profiling is coming. In the U.S., especially Blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans have long been seen by marketers as highly lucrative targets.
Black and Brown viewers have quickly become a key target for advertiser-supported FAST Channels. Black viewers are likelier to watch content from FAST services than viewers overall. They are among the most valuable for media brands because, historically, they are much more likely to spend more time with media and entertainment.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) recently announced ten new FAST channels targeting Hispanics, part of what it calls its “Más” (More) lineup, adding to its existing Spanish-language channel offerings (such as its “Discovery en Español”). The Más channels create unparalleled opportunities for advertisers to connect with this vital audience.
CyberShack’s view – Smart TVs are evil data harvesters but we cannot live without them
We read the 48-page report and faithfully relayed the ‘gist’ of the first 23 pages. To summarise the rest:
The widespread technological and business developments that have taken place during the last five years have created a connected television media and marketing system with unprecedented capabilities for surveillance and manipulation.
The solution is hard; you can’t put this genie back in its bottle. Of course, you can disconnect the internet, but you will still have considerable data harvested, and that is the end of all those digital channels.
It is not just about data gathering for advertisers. That data contains vulnerable groups, including children, young people without adult supervision, disabled or impaired, economically challenged or the elderly.
Then, you have issues with what advertising content you allow. Sports gambling, online casinos, health, drugs, self-medication, pornography, alcohol, smoking, vaping, and so many more socially inappropriate categories are currently getting to FAST users.
Instituting policies for connected television will not be easy, especially after the online industry has been allowed to operate and grow unfettered and unchecked for decades. The systems and relationships that enable ongoing data collection and its use are deeply embedded. Undoubtedly, lobbyists and trade associations for this very influential industry will turn to the same ‘it is too early to regulate’ mantra that has repeatedly thwarted efforts to enact laws and regulations the U.S. communications system so badly needs.
Can you stop Smart TVs data harvesting? No, but you can limit it.
Extreme case – pull the internet plug (or Wi-Fi)
Do not use/enable voice or global content search
Don’t use the TV web browser
Do not use it as a smart hub
Do not use custom themes or screen saver wallpaper
Don’t connect a camera
Do not cast to it, or if you do, use an HDMI cable
AdGuard for Android TV (LG WebOS and Tizen do not appear to have any adblocker)
You may be able to load a VPN from the TV maker’s app store.
The Tech-savvy can block DNS ad servers in their router.
Look under the privacy settings.
Delete the advertising ID
Turn off anything that could collect data, such as auto-updates, screen savers, program recommendations, and marketing.
Turn off any policies other than the manufacturer’s policy and terms of use. You can try to turn these off, but you may find some of the Smart TV features don’t work.
Turn off ACR (personalised recommendations)
Turn off Interest-based advertising
Turn off any smart features like home or hub
Opt-out of advertising
Opt-out of web tracking
Limit the use of FAST TV and delete any unused streaming apps.
