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Samsung To Roll Out In-TV Ads To Legacy Displays Via Software Update
An anonymous reader writes: According to an insider at Samsung's growing advertising team in New York, the second-largest consumer tech manufacturer in the world is planning to retrofit older network-connected TVs to display tiled ads via a software update. The South Korean company, which has seen a 20.9% decline in television sales in Q1 of 2016 under fierce competition from China, has included 'baked' ads into the interface of its recent TV offerings, and also experimented with injecting ads into users' streamed video, transmitting voice commands to a third party -- and, ironically, battling Android over its own AdBlocking technology.
"The South Korean company, which has seen a 20.9% decline in television sales in Q1 of 2016 under fierce competition from China..." So they give consumers MORE reasons NOT to buy their TVs?!!!
Seriously what the hell!
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
A key success metric will be milliseconds-to-first-lawsuit. 4 digits? 5? It'll sure be a non-Samsung shopping opportunity for me if my TV starts exhibiting this behavior.
Don't connect the TV to the internet. No internet, no ads. Use an external device for providing content.
Get used to it, it's the inevitable future of TV.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Depends what they do with it. If they sell ads to sell you a less expensive TV, maybe a lot of people could jump in. If they sell me a 60" LCD 3DTV for 199$, I could accept the ads.
But the retrofit to older models is a plain annoyance that should not happen.
I'm done with ads. I will pirate ad free. Forever and ever. You can't make me like your ads. I am not watching nor participating. Arrest me now fuckheads. I hope all ad companies die and I hope all companies who support ads die. Find another way to make money or fuck off forever.
just saying...
On something that I paid full price for?
This seems like bait-and-switch to me, and potentially actionable fraud.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I've got a few years old Samsung Smart TV.
Every month or two, I get a notice about another service being discontinued. I think I'm down to maybe three whole apps that still work on it.
Sure, these are invasive ads that weren't a part of the product I bought. But at least Samsung is finally adding in place of their constant stripping of functionality.
When you're a Smart TV owner, you take victories where you can find them.
Just kick the TV off the network and it can't possibly get ads injected into it's interface.
Most of these things default to ads for their own products if they aren't able to find the network or ad hosts. That's how they've been dealing with people who put DNS-based ad blocking on their networks.
I remember the old days, when a TV was just a TV. About all you could do with it was use an antenna or attach it to a cable service. But even cable ended up being a scam, it originally was not supposed to have ads. As the subscriptions were supposed to be split between the carrier and the networks, but I guess businesses figured out they could change the deal on us and we weren't going to do anything to stop them.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's what I did years ago when I had a Samsung TV. I never connected it to my network and just played torrented content.
pretty soon we're going to reach the advertising event horizon.
In the aftermath of which, humans will evolve wings and curse the ground.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why the fuck did you buy tvs that need to be plugged into the internet? Stuff plugs in to the tv not the other way around. It's easy enough to get all the content online on your tv without putting the fucking thing online itself. TVs with OS, multiple hunded mb updates, to a fucking TV? I will never buy a smart tv and none of you should either, or before too long our tvs will come with a power lead and rj45 socket (or they'll not bother with that and go wireless only) and that's it. All a tv should do is display exactly the content you put to it. HDMI/USB or just plain old aerial signal. Fuck smart tvs, and shame on anyone who bought one. Throw them in the bin with the 3d TVs. Curved screens are the only gimmick that actually add anything of value (if you're in the sweet spot that is, otherwise you need't've bothered).
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Until they decide they need more money then your future ad-free TV becomes a TV showing ads and you spent an extra $300 for nothing.
I purchased a new Samsung TV in December 2015 and this was not discussed as even a possibility when I chatted through options and scenarios with the store. I chose an internet-connected TV because I live in an apartment building that cannot get satellite TV, so my best option for a wider set of programming was for a net-connected TV... I took a NetFlix subscription and already had Amazon Prime.
However, for Samsung to start injecting commercials into the non-program parts of the TV [for example in the menus] would be a complete breach of the terms and conditions under which the set was purchased. It would be a bit like you purchasing a car, running it for 6 months, then being told by the manufacturer that, "Hey, we've decided your car is now a taxi. You'll have to take fee-paying passengers about when you drive. We won't ask you to change the route, but we will keep all the proceeds of the free rides you need to give."
Not happening.
In the UK at least I think this would fall fall of the "Goods and Services Act", might likely be "false advertising" [for failing to disclose the intent to push adverts], etc, etc.
Interestingly, this isn't the first time that Samsung have tried this. They did it a couple of years ago in Australia and New Zealand, where subscribers to paid network services [like NetFlix] suddenly saw crude, badly-formatted adverts appearing in the middle of (paused) Amazon Prime streaming content. There was uproad, and Samsung pulled the firmware update, hastily claiming it was pushed in error...
We might need to get ready for the same level of uproar if they try again...
Smart TVs are a decent idea but like everything else related to communication or multimedia, it needs to run Free Software. We have all already been given tons of proof that nearly anything that you use to interface with the rest of the world (even if the user is just a "consumer" but moreso when they're not) is too easy to abuse if it can be made to primarily serve the interests of anyone else.
The user needs to be the top, final authority and master, and Free Software is the only way anyone has come up with so far, to make that be the case. Every other approach keeps failing, with apologists ending up using hilarious phrases like "strike a balance."
There is nothing wrong with it being networked; running proprietary software is its problem. If it's your machine, then the more powerful it is, the more powerful you are so the more it's worth. Or to put it another way: it's ok to phone home, if its home happens to be your home.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
and if it looks like something from idiocracy or the 90's news app "Pointcast" , where the viewable area of the screen is surrounded by blocks of ads with only a small window in the middle with actual content? no thanks, and good day Sir,....I said GOOD DAY SIR!
I'm always reminded of the (then) hilarious SNL sketch "Newsforce", fake news broadcast, where Chyrons progressively take over the screen, until the announcers are eventually completely squeezed (squozen?) out of the picture entirely.
They're at least one-upping Google. Samsung makes you pay for it, stuffs it full of ads anyway. They're even stuffing ads into older devices you already paid full price for fair and square.
And to complete the idiocy, they can't figure out why sales are down.
This is beyond rediculous. Why would you pay for a TV that pulls this shit on you? I do not pay premium dollars for a television set that shoves gods-be-damned ADS in my face! All I need a TV to be is a monitor, that's all. I don't even understand why anyone would buy a so-called 'smart' TV in the first place; doesn't everyone either have a DVR, a media center computer, or just watch cable/satellite/OTA broadcasts? On top of all that are the news stories we've all read about how these so-called 'smart TVs' are spying on us. What's next? Are they going to require you to watch streaming ads before it'll allow you to watch whatever you're feeding to the TV to watch? Why is anyone putting up with this shit?
I will NEVER buy a 'smart TV'. Ever.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Depends what they do with it. If they sell ads to sell you a less expensive TV, maybe a lot of people could jump in. If they sell me a 60" LCD 3DTV for 199$, I could accept the ads.
All this does is fuel a death spiral to the bottom. Before you know it every TV is $199 and buying a display that does not demand an Internet connection, constant data collection (e.g. cyber stalking) and ad pushing are no longer for sale at any price.
This very same thing that happened with the app stores. Everything must be free or token cost because that's what people expect. Before you know it the entirety of the business model for software is indistinguishable from spy/mal/ad ware. Those left willing to pay cost are then summarily ignored by the market.
Exposed as a 720p device over HDMI. The borders are for ads. Idiocracy style.
If they really get desperate, they degrade your device further and show more ads.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Doesn't roku still have ads on its main screen?
Or did they change their mind on that?
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
And to complete the idiocy, they can't figure out why sales are down.
I wonder if the next owners will? I actually like the TVs if you do not connect them to the Internet.
Take $100 of the price then I'll watch the ads. Advertisements are supposed to make the product cheaper, as in free television content, coupons, etc. But full price with ads, no thank you. If i'm really worth as much money when I watch ads as advertisers claim then they should be giving me some kickbacks. As much money as advertisers claim to generate you could replace welfare programs by having people watch TV all day.
Ads coming in my snail mail cost money. So there's a weekly flier (and at election time a zillion uninformative pieces of cardboard). But it's very manageable. The cost eliminates spam. So I wish advertisers would pay when they send their ads for free through my ISP, and I wish they'd pay when they broadcast the ads my tv (over the air or via internet). Make the advertisers pay and the spam will go down, you'll get fewer irrelevant ads, and you'll prevent people like Samsung from thinking that it's cheaper to serve up ads than to improve their profit margins via manufacturing or engineering.
If you haven't seen it yet, see the "15 Million Merits" episode of "Black Mirror". (ad-free from Netflix, if you're not on a Samsung TV)
Oh, the irony! I can not watch the skit because my add blocker blocks the add in front of it! Hahahahah!
When spying is getting closer to being free with every improvement in IT efficiency it doesn't take much 'interesting' to be interesting enough to spy on.
I want my TV to be as dumb as possible. I don't want my TV to receive software updates. I want external devices that I can throw in the trash if they pull this kind of stunt.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Advertisements are supposed to make the product cheaper,
Interesting perspective. Someone pays for the ads to be made, which is paid for through the retail price of whatever was being advertised, which means you end up paying for the content one way or another. Unless you refuse to purchase anything that's advertised, in which case you'll probably have to live in the mountains and eat only what you can kill.
This is because in the torrent of companies and brands out there, businesses are being coached by MBAs to get while the getting is good.
Probably because in the dot-com days you had a number of businesses with half-way decent ideas but pushed the "bring the revenue in" phase too far out into the future to help the company.
One company I was at back in the 90s did some of the first online hosting of newscasts. That is, TV news stations would partner with my company who would install internet connections and a few of our boxes at the station. Those boxes would convert the newscast into video clips which we hosted and bolstered with additional content, like web site links, followup interviews, and more context. The news stations loved it.
My company paid for Internet connection (either T-1 or ISDN lines) and the hosting and those boxes. The news stations reciprocated by mentioning their news space on our servers; free advertising, basically. Free advertising is great, but you need something besides other people mentioning your name to bring in the revenue to pay for salaries, bandwidth, and equipment. A year later, the first advertising server was installed. Later in the day, 50% of the work force was laid off, and most of the rest 3 weeks later.
You get while the getting is good, because if you don't, there might not BE a tomorrow. That applies to regular employees as well -- I'm glad I was paid in cash instead of paid in stock options.