Who watches the watchers? Samsung does so it can fling ads at owners of its smart TVs

Found on The Register on Friday, 16 October 2020
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Samsung brags to advertisers that "first screen ads", seen by all users of its Smart TVs when they turn on, are 100 per cent viewable, audience targeted, and seen 400 times per TV per month. Some users are not happy.

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.

According to its Smart TV 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.

So just do not buy this junk. Advertising is extremely annoying already, and there is no reason whatsoever to support this trainwreck by buying such a product.