Ask Slashdot: Can Smart TVs Insert Ads Into Your Movies? (gigaom.com)

dryriver writes: Back in 2015, the owners of some Samsung smart TVs complained about their viewing of films and other content being constantly interrupted by a recurring Pepsi ad. It turned out that yes, the Samsung TV itself was inserting the ad into content.

Samsung said at the time that it was a software glitch that caused this. They left a function on by default that should have been off when they shipped the TVs. But it proves that Smart TVs have an unnerving capability built into them -- the ability to interrupt content playback with product ads actually stored on the TV itself.

So here's the question -- what if all Smart TV makers suddenly decide that having the ability to push custom ads to the owner of the TV is "fair game"? What if they decide "You want to own this model of TV for XXX Dollars? Well, you can have it, but we'll reserve the right to show you customized advertising as you are viewing stuff with it"? Are there any laws anywhere that would protect TV owners from such intrusive advertising?

Comments

Don't buy a smart TV

[mwvdlee]

A Smart TV is a Dimwit TV after two years at most anyway.
Compared to even the most basic stand-alone media player, the "Smart" part of TV's is rarely more than "Marginally above braindead" any way.
Get a separate screen and separate smart media box.

Daft question

[Harold Halloway]

If you buy a smart TV at a discount in exchange for giving the TV manufacturer the rights to show you adverts then of course there's no law that's going to 'protect' you from this. By buying the TV with those conditions attached, you've accepted the conditions.

The law of economics

[Erik Hensema]

Don't buy such a TV. Simple law of economics.

Re:The law of economics

[geekmux]

Don't buy such a TV. Simple law of economics.

We live in the era of never-asked-for-this-shit features, which means you'll get what the manufacturer says you need.

The only simple thing to understand here, is that your opinion no longer matters.

Re:The law of economics

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

That's a common, defeatist, and ultimately self-fulfilling argument.

The GP was right. Stores are selling what they can convince people to buy, because they want the money. If pitching so-called smart TVs as better than normal ones and thus being able to sell them successfully at a higher price works, that's what they'll do.

On the other hand, if enough potential customers ask about products without the junk or start asking tricky questions about the realities of these devices that waste the sales people's time, and particularly if those potential customers are then leaving the store without making a purchase, the stores will go back to demanding simpler units that they can sell. And if customers are giving their money to people who supply good, "dumb" TVs today then the stores and manufacturers offering that option also have a direct incentive to continue.

Voting with your wallet is possibly the most successful form of lobbying for change that humanity has yet conceived.

Kindle With Special Offers

[mentil]

Recall that the Kindle/Fire line of e-readers/tablets have a slightly cheaper version which shows large ads on the lock screen. In my experience they resemble the scrolling ads on Netflix for shows they offer, that works as a screen saver, which I haven't heard anyone complain about or even mention. If that bothers you, you can spend a few dollars more for the model with no ads. So silent ads as screen savers, sure why not.

Pausing the content you're actively trying to consume, and inserting additional ads, is enough of an annoyance I imagine people would purposely avoid TV models that do this. It's not like there's no competition between manufacturers, as it's the end manufacturers and not the panel manufacturers who would do this. There are lots of other companies you can buy from, unless you want something unique like a 2017 OLED TV. That said, the TV would have to be able to pause the content, meaning the content is running from the TV's smart features; since TVs are now able to control connected devices via HDMI I could see them sending a 'pause' signal to a Bluray player, but am not sure if pause signals are actually one of the commands that can be sent over HDMI. The TV would have to connect to the net to verify how many times the ad was watched, so not connecting your TV to the net would probably disable ads.

The amount of ad revenue earned by TV manufacturers would be so minuscule that it wouldn't be worth the backlash or reduced sales. Consumers buying $2k TVs would do the research beforehand, and nearly anyone would rather pay $10 more for a TV without the ads. Cord-cutters using smart TV features are the people MOST likely to abhor ads, so the placement is horrible; a better idea would be to replace the bootup splash screen with a static ad image.

I don't need a law.

[Rip!ey]

I don't need a law. I just need a router with a Firewall. And I have one.

As an Australian though, unless they advertise such a "feature" at the point of sale, I can take it back. It's clearly broken, and not working as advertised or expected. And if they advertise it, then nobody will buy it. Furthermore, if they all do it together, I can demonstrate collusion.

Worst case, some cheap Chinese manufacturer lies waiting in the wings to take advantage of such a situation. Best case, the Japanese manufacturers will not fail face.

It's a non question, anyway you look at it.

step by step

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no big uprising when facebook, windows 10, oculus rift, nvidia drivers, ... collect all the data they can. Data, for which the only commercial value is ads.

Why would anyone expect that there will be more resistance when TVs, cars, or toasters do it? Step by step, advertisers will get every piece of data, from everywhere.

If we're lucky the ads-bubble might burst. Unfortunately, collecting data and distributing ads everywhere is getting far too cheap, so its unlikely.

Prepare for a future that looks like Idiocracy. Car dashboards constantly displaying ads targeted at the driver and passengers, only interrupted for notifications about lesser crimes (also based on the data), and a farting ass.

Disingenuous Argument

[ytene]

Come on, that's entirely specious...

If a manufacturer had pairs of all the TV models they sold, at 2 different prices, one with "commercial free" and the other with a warning that made it crystal clear to the consumer that they were buying a product in which the *product* would insert content, over and above the ability of the user to control, then that would be fair. Amazon did exactly this with their lower-priced Kindle readers - in return for a discounted product, you agreed to take advertisements.

That is most assuredly not happening here. In this case, vendors are taking advantage of the ability to remotely update *your* product, which you purchased under a set of terms and conditions and under the protection of the "Sale of Goods Act" [or your local equivalent] and now the vendor are trying to argue that they have the legal authority to remotely alter/degrade the functionality of the product even if doing so is against your will.

Nope. No way. The Kindle example sets a clear precedent of what can be done by a vendor wishing to explore this revenue stream. Personally, I don't see many takers. If you can afford to buy a decent Smart TV, you can avoid the advert-free model... Or you can buy from someone else! I happen to own a Samsung Smart TV - and if they [Samsung] started to embed commercials in my TV, not only would I junk it, I would never buy another Samsung product again. There are plenty of others to choose from.

Independent connections are dangerous

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

This is the real nightmare scenario for IoT privacy violations.

There are already devices on the market that come with their own independent connections to a wireless data network, and the trend seems to be accelerating. If we're talking about devices that are also connected to anything on your home network and/or that have safety or privacy implications, I'm not sure this is a healthy trend at all. We need much stronger regulation in terms of security, privacy, longevity, and transparency, and meaningful enforcement with substantial penalties, for this to be a sensible direction from the owner's point of view.