If you have an LG TV, ACR tracking is ON BY DEFAULT and you need to turn it off manually. It is well hidden, in settings, "Additional Settings", "Live Plus" needs to be switched off.
It is mind-boggling that there is no uproar over this. Of course, if the EU were to make a fuss, Americans would be all screaming "it's over-regulating!".
Aside from not having one of these devices at all, or disconnecting it from internet access, if you have one and want to opt-out of ACR (Automatic Content Recognition), you need to make sure that you did not select to 'opt-in' to "personalization" type features on the device.
ACR opt-ins are not presented to end-users with a clear statement of what the opt-in means or what will happen with your data from your device and are often presented as turning on "personalization" (generally, for advertising purposes).
The various TV or tv-related device manufacturers use different names for "ACR," so you'll need to decipher what your manufacturer calls this to disable the feature. Consumer Reports has a useful guide covering multiple brands on how to turn off ACR: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
If you find that your device has already been opted-in, you can disable the selection, and submit a request to have your device's information removed in some jurisdictions. You can also select to have your device's identifier id (e.g. "PSID" etc) reset from the device before performing a full factory/configuration reset of the device and setting it up again. If you fully reset the device, you'll want to watch out for the ways the manufacturer will try to get you to opt-in during the setup process. Many people have ACR-turned on without knowing.
It's also worth firewalling, or at least using dns-based blocking, any "smart tv" type devices on your network. Some of them even do periodic scans of your network and send that information to the manufacturer when they "phone home."
On an LG TV, ACR tracking is deceptively called "Live Plus", and it is on by default. I was very careful not to opt in to anything, but they it was still on when I discovered it. Also, you apparently do not own your homescreen, it's their property to do with as they wish.
I was looking at getting a TV and they all have garbage "smart" features I don't want. Someone told me to get a sceptre tv without any of that but I can't find them in my country and their actual panels don't seem that great.
So all thats left is looking for commercial panels but a lot of those have built in content management systems now too.
Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.
Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).
> Unfortunately, benefit to society seems to very rarely be the goal anymore.
If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.
Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.
Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.
Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.
And I would argue that this very quickly becomes a race to the bottom, where the viewing of mass produced trash accelerates because "that's what people want to watch" becomes "we'll flood the market with cheap mass produced bullshit" which immediately becomes "people love watching bullshit and our stats say so!"
I also don't believe for a single second, based on their past records, that Sony, or LG, or whoever, are actually properly anonymising this data
It also creates an echo chamber effect, X is popular so we make more X.
Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop.
Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich richer.
Flowers can’t be eaten. They’re just for someone to look at. Heck most people probably don’t even look at them and buy it as a part of a ritual or formality. Does it mean the flower industry is of no benefit to society?
Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.
Yeah, but people who grow or sell flowers are not on the same level as the very very good engineers who develop these dystopian systems. The people in the advertising industry who make these systems could absolutely do more good for society in a different field.
It’s often suggested in HN comments that keeping a TV disconnected from the LAN will soon be insufficient to prevent data transmission, because companies are on the cusp of including subsidized cell modems in the devices. Have you ever encountered this idea, and is it actually realistic?
Why do they (LG and Samsung) not fingerprint things streamed from a phone, but do fingerprint anything coming over HDMI? And why do they fingerprint their own FAST services, don't they know what they showed already?
I'm trying to find more information about these 2 companies fingerprinting or hashing anything coming over HDMI. Do you have sources? I thought disconnecting my smart TV from internet to be enough to stop the transmission of any ACR data. My concern would be if they store any ACR data locally and queue it for data collection vs if they stream it.
That's concerning. To be clear, I once worked on a company that developed an audio-based ACR technology to be used in conjunction with a secondary device that users would turn on at their will. Anything more invasive would have been substantially challenging in legal aspects so that was the status quo more than 10 years ago. So it's new to me that not only ACR is somehow pervasive in "smart" devices but also they even don't care whether they are really being used as a television (which has no other interaction mechanism in principle, and ACR is not only for ads).
Anime doesn't come in 4K, I have no real reason not to get an early 2010s TV before all this garbage, Sony, LG, Samsung, etc. All for about 100 USD, 200 USD for near enough whatever screen size I'd want for a device right at the bottom of the bathtub curve.
Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV or a PC for best results.
How does that square with "privacy"? Google is an adtech company that makes money on tracking our usage patterns, Chromecast requires logging in, there is no "privacy" around these devices at all.
Surveillance capitalism continues to crush people's privacy, and I don't think the incentive to collect personal data will ever go away. Seriously someone needs to give the big middle finger to Samsung and LG because I want my dumb TVs back.
A reminder that the existence of the advertising industry is a tax that drives up the cost of everything that you buy, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that does not actually improve the product in any way, and yet must be recouped by increasing the price of the product.
So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
In addition to making everything you buy cost more, it also leads to lots of people buying a lot of things they don't really need (or want, after the rush of buying another piece of crap wears off)
> A reminder that the existence of the advertising industry is a tax that drives up the cost of everything that you buy, because every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar that does not actually improve the product in any way, and yet must be recouped by increasing the price of the product
I am not going to try to argue that advertising is good or anything, but I don't think your economic argument is accurate.
If a company didn't have to spend anything on advertising, they wouldn't use that money to improve their product or to reduce the price; the money would go towards profit.
So many people seem to think that prices are set at "expense + fixed profit margin = price" but that is not how any company sets their prices. The ONLY reason a business is going to lower prices is because they think that is the way to increase their profit. They aren't going to lower prices just because some cost goes away.
In an efficient market, competition would drive prices down to reach quite thin profit margins. Of course there is all sorts of friction, change in conditions, inertia, upfront costs, risk etc that reality isn't ideal.
If advertising is giving an expected edge over competition bigger than price decrease, then the advertising will be used in sort of an arms race that could have been a competition in giving the best product for the least money instead.
Still, even if there is no immediate price decrease for the customer, I would be much more satisfied if all the money went to the maker(s) of the product and well-investing shareholders than someone who provides no value and could have been working on something productive instead.
The idea is that they would have to spend that money on improving the good/service or reducing the price in order to compete. Currently more money goes to competing for your attention than on competing on merit.
> So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
Can a capitalist society operate without advertising? How are people to learn about products and services that are available? Yet today poorly targets ads waste the time of everyone involved. If ads could be made relevant without invading your privacy would you be against that?
1. If I have an interest in a field (say, electronics) and then I attend a conference or gathering that's relevant to that field (say, CES), and then you buy a booth at that conference in order to hawk your wares, that's A-OK. The crucial difference is that I willingly understand the context--I'm going to be going to a place that's all about having people sell me things--and that advertisers are not running roughshod over a space where they don't belong. Consider this "pull-based" advertising rather than the "push-based" advertising where ads get shoved in your face every second of the day everywhere you go, even when you're just trying to live your life.
2. Organic word-of-mouth referrals. In an online, AI-infested world, the "organic" part is increasingly hard to come by, but if someone that I trusts tells me that a product is good, that's great and welcome. Crucially, their reputation with me is on the line if they turn out to be wrong or financially compromised.
3. Simple indication of presence. If you have a shop, you're allowed to have a sign on the front with the name of your shop... within reason. Don't push it. Billboards should be banned.
When you "visit" Google / Facebook / YouTube / other online properties do you think you are "going to a place that's all about having people sell me things"?
Do you mean when an entirely new product category is invented and I didn't even know it's useful to me? Because that's kinda rare.
In other cases such as buying a shoe or a can of beer or a fridge or a car, I just go to the website or the physical store that sells it and I compare the products and buy the most suitable one.
This way purchases would be prompted by an actual need, like when my shoes are worn out, I look to buy new ones instead of it being pushed on me through ads when I don't even need it.
Usually the existence of the ad doesn't mean that it's the best in its category. Why would it be in my interest to be following ads instead of my own research?
Also this gotcha is decades out of date. Today's ads are rarely about the features or suitability of the actual product. Instead they sell a vibe, a lifestyle feeling, they create positive emotional associations in ways orthogonal to the product's attributes. Think Coca Cola with celebrities etc. After all, how would I otherwise know I need a can of coke if the trendy singer didn't tell me about it, right?
If you do not know a problem is a problem why search for a solution?
If you do not know a product / service exists why would you search for it?
If "search" is your answer what do you suppose advertisers are doing? Are they not searching for customers?
Advertising is an expensive search with many externalities on society. These externalities are wasteful hence the search for a better way to do it. Google / Facebook / ... I think are funded by solving this problem.
> If you do not know a problem is a problem why search for a solution?
Exactly, I would NOT search for a solution. No sale. Less consumption.
In most cases if you do not know a problem is a problem, then it is actually NOT a problem.[1]
Advertisers' jobs are to convince you otherwise. e.g. You need our pill. You need our gadget. You need our clothing or cosmetic. Advertising does not care about your best interest. Advertising tries to make a sale and advertising is considered successful if a sale is made even if no problem was solved.
[1] There are some exceptions. Serious medical conditions, for example. I don't think most people object to altruistic advertising campaigns to educate people about genuine health problems and their solutions. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here.
It is mind-boggling that there is no uproar over this. Of course, if the EU were to make a fuss, Americans would be all screaming "it's over-regulating!".
ACR opt-ins are not presented to end-users with a clear statement of what the opt-in means or what will happen with your data from your device and are often presented as turning on "personalization" (generally, for advertising purposes).
The various TV or tv-related device manufacturers use different names for "ACR," so you'll need to decipher what your manufacturer calls this to disable the feature. Consumer Reports has a useful guide covering multiple brands on how to turn off ACR: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
If you find that your device has already been opted-in, you can disable the selection, and submit a request to have your device's information removed in some jurisdictions. You can also select to have your device's identifier id (e.g. "PSID" etc) reset from the device before performing a full factory/configuration reset of the device and setting it up again. If you fully reset the device, you'll want to watch out for the ways the manufacturer will try to get you to opt-in during the setup process. Many people have ACR-turned on without knowing.
Adding a few more opt-out guides:
https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/stop-your-snooping-smart-tv...
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/how-to-disable-acr-and...
It's also worth firewalling, or at least using dns-based blocking, any "smart tv" type devices on your network. Some of them even do periodic scans of your network and send that information to the manufacturer when they "phone home."
So all thats left is looking for commercial panels but a lot of those have built in content management systems now too.
Cynically, as time goes on, it feels more and more as though we exist to be maximally extracted from, rather than to enjoy any intended benefit (where the benefit is not a happy byproduct that exists only because it is massively subsidized by aforementioned extraction).
If it ever was. Most of these businesses are still owned by the same people--the Sam Altmans, the Brins and Pages, the Elon Musks, the Steve Huffmans--who started out with the "not in it for the money" and "do no evil" rhetoric, and now their actions show that all that was just a lie from the start.
Ugh. Such a naive and simplistic take. People change, for better and worse. And the figureheads that unaccountable nerds love to bash here are sometimes just that, figureheads.
I also don't believe for a single second, based on their past records, that Sony, or LG, or whoever, are actually properly anonymising this data
Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop.
Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich richer.
Also somewhat related: https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-people-content-creators/
Most things we do are in the end just burning energy to create, move and destroy things in the process. The guys who benefit from ads buy salad from shops employing people. It’s arguable that anything that increases economic cycles is of at least some benefit to society. That’s the advantage of capitalism.
Can it do foreign titles?
Adult titles?
Can it OCR onscreen text, e.g. a computer desktop?
Can it identify video conferences?
Why do advertisers care what I watch? If I watch PBS mystery theater do I get ads for rich people?
Thats precisely what’s happening and it’s nothing new. The only difference here is that the TV is the input vs your browsing habits.
Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV or a PC for best results.
If you already want an off the shelf solution at least get an Apple TV instead of a Google product? At least it’s not an advertising company then.
How does that square with "privacy"? Google is an adtech company that makes money on tracking our usage patterns, Chromecast requires logging in, there is no "privacy" around these devices at all.
So in addition to the complete destruction of personal privacy and the normalization of the panopticon, it's also making you materially poorer. But hey, at least ads are more relevant, sorta, almost, sometimes!
In other words, an advertising dollar doesn't disappear: it's paid to someone.
Window breaking gangs could make a similar same claim about their activity boosting GDP might they not?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
I do remember it being about how a window maker paying people to break windows not being a productive contribution to GDP.
Just thought it was curious seeing it again.
Yes a common misconception about economics so much so it has a Wikipedia page to explain it.
Some TV operating system manufacturers give away their OS to TV manufacturers, and in some cases they even pay TV manufacturers to use their software.
Some streaming service companies pay the TV manufacturers to have a shortcut/launch button on the physical remote.
I am not going to try to argue that advertising is good or anything, but I don't think your economic argument is accurate.
If a company didn't have to spend anything on advertising, they wouldn't use that money to improve their product or to reduce the price; the money would go towards profit.
So many people seem to think that prices are set at "expense + fixed profit margin = price" but that is not how any company sets their prices. The ONLY reason a business is going to lower prices is because they think that is the way to increase their profit. They aren't going to lower prices just because some cost goes away.
Still, even if there is no immediate price decrease for the customer, I would be much more satisfied if all the money went to the maker(s) of the product and well-investing shareholders than someone who provides no value and could have been working on something productive instead.
Can a capitalist society operate without advertising? How are people to learn about products and services that are available? Yet today poorly targets ads waste the time of everyone involved. If ads could be made relevant without invading your privacy would you be against that?
1. If I have an interest in a field (say, electronics) and then I attend a conference or gathering that's relevant to that field (say, CES), and then you buy a booth at that conference in order to hawk your wares, that's A-OK. The crucial difference is that I willingly understand the context--I'm going to be going to a place that's all about having people sell me things--and that advertisers are not running roughshod over a space where they don't belong. Consider this "pull-based" advertising rather than the "push-based" advertising where ads get shoved in your face every second of the day everywhere you go, even when you're just trying to live your life.
2. Organic word-of-mouth referrals. In an online, AI-infested world, the "organic" part is increasingly hard to come by, but if someone that I trusts tells me that a product is good, that's great and welcome. Crucially, their reputation with me is on the line if they turn out to be wrong or financially compromised.
3. Simple indication of presence. If you have a shop, you're allowed to have a sign on the front with the name of your shop... within reason. Don't push it. Billboards should be banned.
When you "visit" Google / Facebook / YouTube / other online properties do you think you are "going to a place that's all about having people sell me things"?
In other cases such as buying a shoe or a can of beer or a fridge or a car, I just go to the website or the physical store that sells it and I compare the products and buy the most suitable one.
This way purchases would be prompted by an actual need, like when my shoes are worn out, I look to buy new ones instead of it being pushed on me through ads when I don't even need it.
Usually the existence of the ad doesn't mean that it's the best in its category. Why would it be in my interest to be following ads instead of my own research?
Also this gotcha is decades out of date. Today's ads are rarely about the features or suitability of the actual product. Instead they sell a vibe, a lifestyle feeling, they create positive emotional associations in ways orthogonal to the product's attributes. Think Coca Cola with celebrities etc. After all, how would I otherwise know I need a can of coke if the trendy singer didn't tell me about it, right?
Search. Easier said than done, thanks to SEO and business models like Google. So maybe I should say "paid search". We get what we pay for.
If you do not know a product / service exists why would you search for it?
If "search" is your answer what do you suppose advertisers are doing? Are they not searching for customers?
Advertising is an expensive search with many externalities on society. These externalities are wasteful hence the search for a better way to do it. Google / Facebook / ... I think are funded by solving this problem.
Exactly, I would NOT search for a solution. No sale. Less consumption.
In most cases if you do not know a problem is a problem, then it is actually NOT a problem.[1]
Advertisers' jobs are to convince you otherwise. e.g. You need our pill. You need our gadget. You need our clothing or cosmetic. Advertising does not care about your best interest. Advertising tries to make a sale and advertising is considered successful if a sale is made even if no problem was solved.
[1] There are some exceptions. Serious medical conditions, for example. I don't think most people object to altruistic advertising campaigns to educate people about genuine health problems and their solutions. But I don't think that's what we're talking about here.
If I don’t know a product or service exists, why do I need it?
My life is fine as it is, I don’t need stupid advertisements for stuff that won’t enrich it.