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Samsung Smart TVs Injected Ads Into Streamed Video
mpicpp sends this news from CNET:
Reports are emerging that Samsung smart TVs have begun inserting short advertisements directly into video streaming apps, with no influence from the third-party app providers. The news comes just days after Samsung made headlines for another incursion into users' lounge rooms, when it was revealed that its TV voice recognition software is capable of capturing personal information and transmitting it to third parties. ... The issue has been reported on the Plex streaming service — a brand of media player that allows users to stream their own video from a personal library or hard drive and push it to a smart TV.
Samsung says this was not intentional, and that they've fixed it so the ads should no longer show up.
What they mean by that is that they didn't intend for people to object to the ads or for their poor behavior to be called out.
It's really too bad, I have an older Samsung HDTV and it's really great. I was considering buying another Samsung when the time came to replace it. Now what am I going to buy? Sony? Vizio?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Well, don't buy LG -- they do the same thing as Samsung. In addition to forcibly displaying ads, they have other problems, too -- they invalidated my HDMI cables because they updated the protocol ports without asking leaving me to buy new equipment so they could 'enforce copyright laws'.
It was an accident? So all this ad injection tech was a typo by some developer? lol. Why is it that the more popular a tech company gets the more of a dick it becomes? Is that some sort of business law? Samsung's trustworthiness is zero as far as I'm concerned.
Samsung says this was not intentional.
If they can "accidentally" insert ads into video streams can we really be confident that the audio stream of conversations from the smart tv won't "accidentally" be passed to advertisers for targeting, listened to by employees, or even used to select victims of crime ("yes I'm going to be away next week but I'll hide the Rembrant under the bed")?
Between this and the privacy invasions I'd say there is no place for these TV's in my home. And I really wouldn't want to hang out in other people's homes if they had them, either. This application of technology needs to die in a fire.
Check the qualifiers. That behavior was intended, but for other markets. Samsung does have plans to introduce it to the Australian market, but in the long term.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I mean, with the plethora of set-top boxes like AppleTV, Roku, FireTV, ChromeCast, why would anyone in their right mind buy an all-in-one, especially from a known UI offender like Samsung (TouchWiz?).
Samsung should focus on making a TV with sound that doesn't suck (i.e., integrated wireless speakers that auto-calibrate) or maybe focus on style and setup for differentiation.
Whatever... they are a low-price disruptor and they essentially kicked Panasonic and Pioneer out of the market so they could foist this "app crap" on us. Whoever buys a Samsung "smart" TV deserves one I guess.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I have been in the market for an HDTV for a while now, but haven't been convinced that any aren't massive security holes.
So quarantine it on the network just like you would any other untrusted machine. Firewall, DMZ, etc. I think it is only sane to regard devices like this as insecure and to behave accordingly. I think the same could be said for lots of so-called smart home devices. Anything you don't have a reasonable approximation of full control over should be treated as insecure by default
Don't buy a tv, spend more time on tracker sites and slashdot instead.
Vizio is a pretty solid brand... at least for their larger TVs. Decent contrast, good response time, and if you choose carefully, no Smart TV nastiness. Of course, we bought the Smart TV at the time, but it doesn't get in the way. The only way you'll see it is if you press a certain button. And personally, they did Smart TV right. If you need it, it's there and easy to access. If you don't want it, don't worry about it - out of mind, out of sight.
Check the qualifiers. That behavior was intended, but for other markets. Samsung does have plans to introduce it to the Australian market, but in the long term.
That's exactly it. There's no way for them to claim it's unintentional, as it takes intentional code to create this behavior. I don't know what on earth these people are thinking, but I won't be buying any "smart" TV that decides to share my conversations and injects ads where they don't belong. Same thing goes for Keurig and their DRM'd coffe makers or any other "smart" applicances. It seems that every "smart" appliance has a lot of foolish thinking behind it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Unfortunately above a certain screen size it's basically impossible to get a non-"smart" TV. Personally I can do without all the extra fluff and would prefer they just give me lots of input ports and great picture and drop the price a lot. If I want to stream something I'll get a separate device (Roku, Bluray etc) to do that. I already have a TiVo and it does pretty much 90%+ of what I want out of a TV.
Personally all I want is a huge screen with excellent picture and sound features and lots of input ports. Basically just a big monitor. Good luck getting that in 60+ inch screen size though...
Surely we've reached the point where advertisers can be classified as a highly invasive species of mammalian pests and our attentions turned to exterminating them, no?
Yep! After a firmware update for my LG that basically told me "allright, now I'm going to report on what you watch to whomever I damn well please", I blocked its access to the internet on my firewall (I keep my Wifi on a separate subnet), so sorry LG TV, no more Internet access for you (but I obviously can still stream stuff from my own LAN)
Why would Sony be getting paid for adverts on a Samsung TV?
when something like a TV will require accepting an EULA in order to use it as intended. No doubt, buried in the EULA will be your agreeing to let them send ads whenever they want. What's next, a coffee machine that can insert other brands of coffee into the brew cycle?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
this really needs to be made illegal by some consumer protections group. displaying ads, breaking hdmi, recording your voice these are all huge points your product did not do when you purchased it.
sadly, government will not likely do squat about that. oligarchies are like that. guess i'll be going back to the HTPC + dumb tv next purchase
Since when were dumb TVs ever subsidized by ads? The low cost of today's flat panel televisions is largely due to advances in electronics and mass manufacturing, not some hidden stealth subsidy. It's the programming that is subsidized by ads, not the device itself.
No no no, you got it all wrong! It was not intended that they get caught! The whole injecting their own ads into the stream, that's a feature!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It seems that every "smart" appliance has a lot of foolish thinking behind it.
AKA greed. I'd be surprised if I'm the only person who avoids companies that keep finding ways to get around ad blockers.
VENDORS: Wanna advertize to me? Do it DISCRETELY while I'm SEARCHING for YOUR product; and ONLY if you have a product I'm looking for; otherwise, you lose me as a customer/client. Want me to receive your ads? PAY *me*, not only the ad pushers!
Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?
I use AdBlock and Ghostery's lists to block ad networks and trackers at the router level. Any computer/phone/smart device that connects to my network automatically has ads and trackers blocked. So far, so good. Granted, it's not simple enough for the everyday person to implement. Also, I don't buy any smart TVs because their software is most often crap, you shouldn't have to accept an EULA to use a TV (or a coffee machine, toaster, etc), and they have the capacity to be bricked unlike a regular "dumb" TV. And then there's this eavesdropping and injecting additional ads BS.
Just don't buy a smart tv. They cost a whole lot more than "dumb tvs" and you can by a roku box/amazon fire stick/ etc for a fraction of the price difference.
Those are also cheaper to "upgrade" (replace) when you want something better and is more mobile than carrying your entire TV around.
My LG TV got a firmware update that - after the upgrade was installed - prompted me to accept a new agreement that would allow them to monitor everything I do and send it to a third party. I declined, and in return most of the SMART features were disabled. LG's support only refers me to an email address they claim should be displayed on the agreement page (which of course does not contain any contact information at all), and when pushing them they told me to email an address that is more or less a black hole (they never reply).
Sometimes I wonder if the board at Samsung aren't a bunch of senile old Koreans who've completely lost any connection to reality. Anyone remember that crazy musical press conference they held a couple of years ago? It looked like what I picture Johnny Depp would see whenever he closes his eyes.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Don't buy a fucking 'Smart' TV.
Instead of the app embedded in the TV, run the real version of the app on something else.
Take Samsung out of the equation entirely.
A 'Smart' TV is mostly a vehicle for companies to gather more data about you, and get in on the money action -- which means you should not be trusting it.
Because you're stuck with whatever sleazy stuff they're doing in the background, and whatever changes they're making to the EULA and privacy policy without telling you.
Samsung are increasingly sound like a company I'd not really be willing to buy products from. Because they seem to be suffering from a lot of "because we can, and because we gave ourselves permission" crap.
Sorry, but no. Injecting ads into a stream you have nothing to do with? But that's just assholes in marketing who need to be shot.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
But if all tv makers do the same thing, you'll vote with your wallet by not having a tv at all. Other people (like me) only found out about LG reporting back to their servers what you're watching only after buying the TV, and unplugging ethernet was easier than taking the TV back.
It's an invasion of privacy, no different than medical information or what you talk about with your lawyer, yet there are privacy protections there. It should be the same here.
I'm not so sure. LG sends back info on what you're watching via USB, Amazon, Netflix. No voice control there. I think smart TVs will keep taking liberties,
Vizio is a pretty solid brand... at least for their larger TVs. Decent contrast, good response time, and if you choose carefully, no Smart TV nastiness. Of course, we bought the Smart TV at the time, but it doesn't get in the way. The only way you'll see it is if you press a certain button. And personally, they did Smart TV right. If you need it, it's there and easy to access. If you don't want it, don't worry about it - out of mind, out of sight.
How terrible is it that I am now suspicious of every post saying something good about a company or product? This could be a legit post, written by someone who has a positive experience with their TV. But I read the content and see it's posted by an AC and immediately think "astroturf". There is a trust that has been broken in our society; a lot actually. Something has been lost and I'm not sure if/how we get it back.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Personally, I just want my TV to be a monitor: display a video signal as clearly and cleanly as possible.(optimally: with the lowest possible power use too). Is that too much to ask?
I don't need voice commands, hyperlinking to IMDB, or social media letting my friends know WTF kind of pr0n I watch.
Just like their warning about "well the TV is listening for your commands, so private info you say may also be inadvertently recorded and passed to third parties" - the former is sort of logically true, with any speech-recognition thing, of course. It's the LATTER that's evil: you as a company wringing every fucking *penny* out of my user data ("Oh, I see styopa switched aware from channel 4 when this Pepsi commercial came on? Let's let Ch4 and Pepsi both know!") without a) letting me know, and b) sharing it with me, if I opt to let you do it.
I'm sensing that there HAS to be a market out there for 'clean' tech products, no?
-Styopa
There used to be a fiduciary responsibility to maintain the public trust. We didn't need laws to protect people, because there weren't unnamed unknown faceless corporations hiding nefarious activities.
This is why, I suggest that we start using the Corporation Death Penalty for gross violations of public trust. And use it in cases like this, where public trust is abused behind corporate greed.
THIS, backhanded, sleazy greed, this abuse of public trust, needs to be slapped down hard.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Looks like I just need a router with the same smarts as the TV, where the telly would be on its own network segment (so it can't change its IP and get around it.)
Maybe this is a harbinger of things to come where IoT devices in general would need firewalled due to privacy and security concerns.
Of course, the next counter from the TV makers, will be the TV either just not working at all with any inputs unless it has the ability to phone home (think games that require a constant network connection), or it gets a 3G antenna... so even without a direct Net connection, it still can phone home.
Maybe the best of all worlds is as described above... a HTPC + a large monitor. Smart TVs seem dumb to me, as they don't add any useful features, but seem be another vector for ad-slinging and invading privacy.
The fact is that in general, people want to own their stuff, not have their stuff own them. Apple taught manufacturers a very poor lesson; namely, the way to make huge profits is to create and cultivate a walled garden that the manufacturer controls and collects the tolls. But Apple wasn't successful because it has a walled garden, it is successful because plenty of people with lots of disposable income like the Apple user experience. You can argue that the walled garden is a necessary condition to the iPhone user experience, and at the very least it makes it easier to define the user experience when you control everything, however necessary != sufficient.
Good UI takes lots of hard work from talented developers, designers, and artists. Apple may not always succeed at this (e.g. maps) but it seems that no other big manufacturer is willing to put in the hard work to make a product that people actually like. So instead of making money by "locking" people into a system that they choose of their own free will, they try to make money by 1) making crap software to save money on costs, and 2) monetizing everything the possibly can, from DRM on a coffee pod to putting commercials into locally stored video.
Of course! That's why they're all designed to work with the "cloud." Making it easy for Joe Dumbass to use without having to teach him how to set up his own server is only the excuse they tell "consumers;" the real reason they do it is for that sweet, sweet Big Data.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The only way to get LG to actually react would be for everyone affected to sue them individually in small-claims court (for the cost of the TV, plus court costs). Complaining anywhere other than a courtroom will get us nowhere, and going class-action just results in coupons for $10 off the next piece of privacy-destroying bullshit.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, it would not. Modifications of websites using Greasemonkey and Adblock are done by the end user, which means no distribution of the modified work has occurred and therefore copyright law does not apply. Using Greasemonkey or Adblock is conceptually no different than taking a black marker to (your own copy of) a magazine and scribbling out the stuff you don't want to see.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yeah, truely awesome concept! The only way we can be sure.
And if you can't afford to buy a new TV every time something like this happens, you as a consumer really are powerless.
We all need to get together and form some Big Dumb Companies:
* Big Dumb Pipe: High-Speed Symmetrical Broadband with no other restrictions, bells, whistles, nor even the ability to log your activities, given that it is only a Big. Dumb. Pipe.
* Big Dumb Appliances: No, they will not be running apps nor making predictive adjustments based on your FitBit. But they will have ALL user-replaceable parts and be so durable, most if not all will be handed down at least two generations.
* Big Dumb Panels: no built-in anything, such as DRM, locked-down SOCs, near-useless speakers, nor web cams, nor mics: just a big, beautiful screen, tiny bezels, a plethora of mounting holes, and damn near every type of video connection, period.
The ad campaign writes itself: "Big. Dumb. Ideas who's time have come."
This happened post-purchase - including changes in the Terms & Conditions. You show me how you can read the future.
From a manufacturing standpoint, Smart TVs aren't dumb. If you've ever taken apart a modern HDTV, it's basically a monitor plus a small computer which does the image decoding and processing. On some HDTVs the computer half even plugs into the monitor half with a DVI cable.
For the manufacturer, it's trivial to beef up the computer with $10-$20 of extra hardware (faster CPU and more RAM), add some software, and charge an extra $200 for it being a Smart TV. As you surmise, the buyer is much better off buying a "dumb" TV and adding a HTPC (I recommend an old laptop so you don't kill your dollar savings with extra electricity burned by a 100 Watt old desktop).
You've been pretty busy here defending the "rights" of corporations to be deceitful and unethical.
Are you being paid to shill for deceptive practices, or have corporate "libertarians" done a good job brainwashing you into believing that a corporation has no obligation to protect the public interest in exchange for the liability protection and corporate "personhood?"
Or maybe you've bought into the promise that, yes, you'll grow up and be a rich corporation one day too and so therefore you should defend the corporations.
I can see the fnords!
All TOS say that. You would be effectively banned from buying anything because ALL manufacturers do this. And since the "free market" is dumber than you are, they will sit idly by and allow it.
You are not a big enough customer base to ever effect change. Businesses do not do "the right thing" and there is no financial incentive to do so.
You can go ahead and keep trolling, but you're very clearly too idealistic to see the real world for what it is.
I have a smart TV + HTPC.....the TV has never had a net connection and it never will......out of the box it displayed things on the screen; what else does it need to do?
@Random_Adam
Sometimes a sig doesn't have to be funny!!
Gotta wonder... would Pepsi, Coke and other "name brands" really lose much business if they stopped advertising? Or would their net profit increase by not wasting $$ on ads?
Yep,
For brands like, Coke, McDonalds, et al. They would lose a lot of sales if they didn't constantly expose people to their advertising. You'd be surprised at the number of people who only drink Coke because they were exposed to a coke advert a few moments ago. For these companies they need to stay at the front of people's consciousness as they cant rely on people getting hungry or thirsty and defaulting to Micky D's or Coke because people would rarely do this of their own accord.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.