Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything

Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by egdod on Thursday November 28, 2019 @05:21PM (#21660551)

I assume not long. And there’s no good way to stop that.

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Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by Silhouette on Thursday November 28, 2019 @05:35PM (#21660618)

And there’s no good way to stop that.

As long as they rely on your own network for their external connectivity, you can always firewall them (at the expense of any connected features you do want to use, perhaps, but then I suspect most of us would agree that 99% of those are junk in most smart TVs anyway and be OK with that limitation).

The problem comes when they can form their own connections, but in that case they're not under your control anyway, DoH or not.

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Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by egdod on Thursday November 28, 2019 @05:39PM (#21660640)

But that breaks the streaming functionality.

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Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by Silhouette on Thursday November 28, 2019 @06:12PM (#21660791)

Only if you stream via your TV and not a separate box. Obviously that's part of what they're banking on, but I don't know anyone technically knowledgeable who does that (not least because TVs are notoriously bad at updates and incompatibility often breaks those functions soon after purchase anyway). John and Jane Viewer used to manage just fine with separate set-top boxes for their satellite or cable or whatever, so I don't personally see any problem with having separate (and therefore separately upgradable or replaceable) boxes for connecting to online services, while it does have clear advantages.

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Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by prepend on Thursday November 28, 2019 @05:57PM (#21660720)

Just stream using a separate box connected over HDMI.

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Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by move-on-by on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:35AM (#21664615)

And then that device will do the same tracking/spying as the TV

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Re:Smart TVs like Samsung, LG and Roku are tracking everything by Silhouette on Friday November 29, 2019 @09:57AM (#21664719)

They might try, but any such device will likely be much more interchangeable than the TV itself, with more competition. One significant problem with the TV industry at the moment is that competition has failed and essentially they're all at it.

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