Who watches the watchers? Samsung does so it can fling ads at owners of its smart TVs
- Reference: 1601482512
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/30/samsung_smart_tv_ads/
- Source link:
"Dear Samsung, why are you showing Ads on my Smart TV without my consent? I didn't agree to this in the privacy settings but I keep on getting this, why?" [1]said a user on Samsung's TV forum, adding last week that "there is no mention of advertising on any of their brand new boxes".
As [2]noted by TV site flatpanelshd, a visit to Samsung's [3]site pitching to advertisers is eye-opening. It is not just that the ads appear, but also that the company continually profiles its customers, using a technology called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), which works by detecting what kind of content a viewer is watching.
Samsung's Tom Focetta, VP Ad Sales and Operations in the US, said in [4]an interview : "Our platform is built on the largest source of TV data from more than 50 million smart TVs. And we have amassed over 60 per cent of the US ACR footprint." Focetta added that ACR data is "not sold, rented or distributed" but used exclusively by Samsung to target advertising.
The first screen ad unit was introduced five years ago, Focetta explained, and the company has since "added video, different types of target audience engagement, different ways to execute in terms of tactics like audience takeovers, roadblocks". A "roadblock" is defined as "100 per cent ownership of first screen ad impressions across all Samsung TVs". According to a Samsung support, quoted by flatpanelshd: "In general, the banner cannot be deactivated in the Smart Hub."
In 21st-century tech dystopia, smart TV watches you, warns Princeton privacy prof [5]READ MORE
Advertising does not stop there since Samsung also offers TV Plus, "a free ad-supported TV service". Viewers are familiar with this deal, though, since ad-supported broadcasting is long established. What perturbs them is that when spending a large sum of money on TV hardware, they were unknowingly agreeing to advertising baked into its operating menu, every time they switch on.
The advent of internet-connected TVs means that viewers now divide their time between traditional TV delivered by cable or over the air, and streaming content, with an increasing share going to streaming. Viewers who have cancelled subscription TV services in favour of streaming are known as cord-cutters.
Even viewers who have chosen to watch only ad-free content do not escape. "30 per cent of streamers spend all of their streaming time in non-ad supported apps. This, however, does not mean 'The Lost 30' are unreachable," said Samsung in a [6]paper .
Samsung's solution is not only the first screen ads mentioned above, but also that "ACR data can reveal which audiences in a given household have seen your brand... through partnerships with the right tech stack to target and serve ads across all connected screens, advertisers who cannot reach an audience on the big screen can reach them on the other devices they are using."
Samsung is claiming that with the "right tech stack" a target stubbornly refusing to watch an ad on the big screen can be reached nonetheless, perhaps through their smartphone instead.
"I am at the point where I am not willing to buy any 'smart' TV at all. My next TV will be the biggest UHD monitor I am able to buy. It only needs an HDMI input, that's all," said a person on [7]Twitter commenting on the issue.
The same effect can be achieved by not connecting a smart TV to the internet, but doing so removes all of its "smart" capability.
According to its Smart TV [8]privacy policy , Samsung does allow viewers to disable "Interest-based advertisement (IBA) services". This does not affect whether or not you see advertisements, but does reduce the data collected.
The key question is this: let's say the income from advertising subsidizes the price of these data-collecting TVs, rather than simply directly adds to Samsung's bottom line. How much more would people be willing to pay for an ad-free, privacy-respecting version? If most people accept this kind of intrusion as normal, in a world where even your operating system (Windows, we're looking at you) may push ads at you, nothing will change. ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/tv/unsolicited-ad-on-smart-tv/td-p/1898596
[2] https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1583755244
[3] https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/
[4] https://tvrev.com/ott-rising-how-data-from-50-million-smart-tvs-is-fueling-samsungs-growing-addressable-ad-business/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/01/your_smart_tv_is_watching_you_says_princeton_privacy_prof/
[6] https://www.samsung.com/us/business/samsungads/resources/form/total-tv-watcher/
[7] https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/1310926694061092864
[8] https://www.samsung.com/uk/info/privacy/
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Likewise
I have a new Samsung TV, but no ads :(
Maybe it has something to do with the Pi-Hole I have as well?
Somebody should do some research.........
Re: Likewise
I have a 55" Samsung smart TV bought this year (or possibly last), no special DNS settings or Pi-Hole or anything, it is connected to the internet (I like its youtube app), and yet I have never seen these ads. I'm glad about that, but what's going on? Certain models only? Is it a regional thing, and they're not doing it in the UK? Or is there going to be a firmware update one day and suddenly they'll start showing?
Re: Likewise
It might be something to do with GDPR, meaning that they can't operate it freely in Europe?
The bastards!
Would they also force this on their grandmothers?
Re: The bastards!
Yes.
Re: The bastards!
They'd happily sell their grandmothers for glue if they could get a tax deduction for it
Good reason not to upgrade
Samsung may finally start regretting their abusive behaviour towards their customers, but only long after someone else has taken their market share.
If your customer clearly does NOT want to be bothered with ads.
Boasting about how you can find ways to force ads in their faces is probably going to blow up in your face.
The other big loosers are the brands that apparently are told they should pay big money for these "forced" ads.
I'm not sure about others, but if something forces an ad on my phone or computer or anything else, my immediate reaction is anger towards whatever brand is being displayed, which makes me way less likely to buy anything from them.
Re: Good reason not to upgrade
"if something forces an ad on my phone or computer or anything else, my immediate reaction is anger towards whatever brand is being displayed, which makes me way less likely to buy anything from them"
Marketing are not paid to think like this. Their entire livelihood depends on that.
Re: Good reason not to upgrade
Sure if we see an ad in an unexpected place at an unexpected time we have the opportunity to get mad and boycott.
But in general that's not how ads work, they're everywhere, in real life and on media and they'll put images in your mind you don't even notice. Next time you shop for something and have a choice between two similarly priced brands there's a non-zero chance you'll chose the one you saw in an ad, not because you remember the ad but because you somehow have a good feeling about it. Research shows we're helpless against this. Ads works.
Only thing we can do is to get Netflix, cancel TV and use ad blockers. I saw a debate the other day on a friend's TV and between the ads and the two politicians being infantile ignorant nincompoops I realized how much I enjoy life without cable.
BTW: Some Smart TVs now bypass your local DNS, to avoid DNS based blocking so they can still send back collected data (whether they show ads or not). Maybe some day they'll even come with their own 5G radio to bypass your network.
Re: Good reason not to upgrade
I agree with you and have the same reaction when they're forced on me. However you're forgetting that most of the population are stupid and/or ignorant and will just take this behaviour as normal. They might even buy the products being advertised.
They may even be tempted to buy a new TV even though the one they already have is good enough.
Re: Good reason not to upgrade
I have noticed that YouTube are now playing full ads on Android before starting a video, before it was always with the option of only seeing the first few seconds then clicking 'Skip ad' now they are forcing the whole piece of irrelevant shit on to me. What Samsung is doing is even worse and arguably unethical or possibly even illegal in some jurisdictions, I hope everyone stops buying their goods if that is an indicator of their regard for the customers that enable them to exist.
Many years back I worked for a part of the TV ad industry, a lot of the people were arseholes and years later, I can see they haven't improved.
So my next TV won't be
a Samsung. It also won't be a Sony either (my existing smart one is as smart as a sack of rocks, I had to buy a Humax box for the ITV hub etc). The large dumb monitor idea sounds like the way to go.
Re: So my next TV won't be
Hey OP, can you message me please? I also have the box of which you speak but mine is having intermittent problems.
Snooping
I recall an executive of a big TV manufacturer 3-4 years back said publicly something to the effect of "The profit margin on TV's is now only 7%, granted we did this to ourselves but here we are and that's why we use SmartTVs to collect information about people's habits to generate extra revenue."
I was going to look at a Samsung 50" TV - to buy one today, in fact.
Now I'm not. Even though I already have PiHole on the LAN.
I'll stick with the ancient Sony I was given by a neighbour; as winter approaches, the heat it gives out will probably be welcome. AND it has VGA connector AND (if I remember rightly) SCART too.
Bye Samsung. Fool me once, etc.
What are LG's TV's like ?
Re: I was going to look at a Samsung 50" TV - to buy one today, in fact.
Worse
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/lg-smart-tv-snooping-extends-to-home-networks-second-blogger-says/
The only issue with buying a monitor as opposed to a smart TV is the big price difference. You can pick up a Philips 4K 50 inch TV for a about £350 where as a 42 inch Philips 4K monitor is about £529, and doesn't pick up broadcast TV.
So unless you need the extra refresh rates and resolutions from the monitor its better to just buy a smart tv and not connect it up to the internet. You can just plug in a separate box such as an Amazon fire stick or Roku and get the streaming services through there. And the apps will probably get updated more frequently than the ones on the smart TV. How many 5 year old smart TVs now can't access the services any more because the apps are out of date?
One thing that I do is cast from my phone to the TV. The TV's MAC address is blocked from all outside traffic at the firewall, so no ads or anything, and I still get some of the benefits of a smart TV because the apps on the phone are updated constantly, and no spying.
"how much more would people be willing to pay for an ad-free, privacy-respecting version?"
£200, that's my price. Any mid-high end model 55" or above - kill all ads, remove the network connections, add 2 more inputs, take out any smart functionality, replace it with good old fashioned well designed menus with plenty of settings that I can play with. I'm in the market for one TV preferably 85"+ and another one 60"+ and I'll pay £200 more than each of their current prices for those features to be removed.
Talking of good old menus, my last two TVs have been toshiba and while the picture quality and latency were excellent, they had about six useful settings that can be configured in their menus. If you enjoy things like being able to rename inputs and setting a different picture / sound config per input that is actually retained, then stay away from toshibas, they are consumer shite designed for simpler folk.
Don't connect your TV to the internet
The "smart TV" functionality goes bad after a couple years when the updates stop anyway, and are generally inferior to what you get on an Apple TV, Roku, etc. Unless it has ads stored in its firmware, that ought to stop them (and even if it doesn't, it will stop them making a penny off them since they won't know you've seen them)
This was the lawsuit with Vizio who might have been the pioneers of TV spying tech:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/12/18222181/vizio-tv-spying-lawsuit-settlement-how-to-get-paid
IIRC they used a tech that sampled video from your actual screen driver so even if you're watching terrestrial TV or a DVD (remember those?), matching algorithms could identify, Shazam-like, the actual content.
"The key question is this: presuming that income from advertising tends to subsidise the price of these data-collecting TVs, how much more would people be willing to pay for an ad-free, privacy-respecting version?"
I seriously doubt they're subsidising anything, just raising more money.
It cuts both ways; my dumb Samsung TV isn't going to be replaced with a smart one any time soon and certainly not with another Samsung, based on this.
I have Samsung TVs in two rooms, and I've never seen these ads... I guess the settings in OpenDNS are working by blocking the advertising domains.