[HN Gopher] Automatic Content Recognition Tracking in Smart TVs
___________________________________________________________________
Automatic Content Recognition Tracking in Smart TVs
Author : some_furry
Score : 121 points
Date : 2024-09-26 14:29 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from
| https://www.feistyduck.com/newsletter/issue_117_smart_tvs_ar...,
| which points to this.
| kibwen wrote:
| 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!
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Running targeted advertising on devices allows manufacturers to
| price devices lower by recouping lost sale revenue from the
| advertising stream.
|
| In other words, an advertising dollar doesn't disappear: it's
| paid to someone.
| czl wrote:
| > 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
| pests wrote:
| Someone used this window breaking analogy recently here on
| HN - I can't remember why it came up or who said it, but is
| this a common framing?
|
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| > but is this a common framing?
|
| Yes a common misconception about economics so much so it
| has a Wikipedia page to explain it.
| pests wrote:
| Oh duh, thanks. I somehow did not see your link when I
| originally posted.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| > to someone
|
| ... I'd rather not pay for the "service" they're providing.
| czl wrote:
| > 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?
| emptybits wrote:
| > How are people to learn about products and services that
| are available?
|
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| 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.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I've been advertised something that actually removes a
| problem I know about in my life, just for made up
| "problems".
|
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| > If I don't know a product or service exists, why do I
| need it?
|
| Do you not purchase things / services you do not need?
|
| > My life is fine as it is, I don't need stupid
| advertisements for stuff that won't enrich it.
|
| How might you reply to a someone from a few thousand or
| few hundred or even few dozen years ago that has your
| attitude? Might you be tempted to advertise to them what
| they are missing? Would they not be interested?
| emptybits wrote:
| > 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.
| czl wrote:
| > No sale. Less consumption.
|
| What makes "Less consumption" a good goal? What are
| biospheres if not cycles of consumption? When our planet
| becomes sterilized due to some disaster will you
| celebrate "Less consumption"? Obviously not. EFFICIENT
| consumption is a good goal so we maximize what we desire
| and minimize the undesirables.
|
| > 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.
|
| Yes. In a capitalist economy all act in self interest.
| This is clearly s bad system except if you have
| experience living under other systems and there the
| direction of migration should be a clue about what people
| prefer.
| kibwen wrote:
| I'll list three kinds of ethnical advertising:
|
| 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.
| czl wrote:
| 100% agree with your three points.
|
| 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"?
| bonoboTP wrote:
| 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?
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| I generally find that the ads I see are for things that I
| definitely don't want and shouldn't purchase, and it's just
| them pouring bucks into the effort to get in front of my
| face and wear me down.
|
| Consider that you should never accept cold-call sales or
| offers under typical circumstances; I make notes on the ads
| I see in order to blacklist them, essentially.
|
| The good deals are found by my seeking them out, doing
| research, asking questions. Knowing a brand reputation
| apart from marketing. Discerning things like corporate
| culture, attitude, politics, intended market or audience.
|
| So many products and services are made on the basis of
| shoveling crap to make a profit, or supporting some cause
| or crusade, and the more I can pierce the veil, the better
| I feel about where my money's going.
| amelius wrote:
| > How are people to learn about products and services that
| are available?
|
| Remember Yellow Pages?
|
| And if that is not good enough, perhaps you can opt in to an
| advertising service that shows you ads when you want to see
| them (as opposed to when they want to show them to you).
| moandcompany wrote:
| Also...
|
| 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.
| cortesoft wrote:
| > 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.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| 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.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| 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.
| gljiva wrote:
| 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.
| CalRobert wrote:
| 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)
| amelius wrote:
| Yes. Someone should research the effect of banning ads on the
| health of our planet.
| moandcompany wrote:
| In the case of television screens, the net profit margins on
| sales of these devices are in the single-digit percentages.
| Fairly thin, around 4-7%. Higher-end products, such as cutting-
| edge flagship products (e.g. 100"+ MicroLED television screens)
| will have higher margins, but lower production yields, and
| orders of magnitude lower sales volume. These products don't
| need to be replaced year after year, and most buyers are not
| selecting a product based on the technical specifications and
| performance, rather the screen-size per dollar (or whatever
| currency used) and other factors such as aesthetic appeal of
| the device in the home environment. The average lifetime,
| before replacement, of a television screen in North America is
| somewhere around 5-7 years, and you don't need one in every
| room of your home or living space.
|
| The commodification of screens from both the production side
| (i.e. newer entrants to the market from Chinese manufacturers)
| and from the content portal side (i.e. Roku, Google TV, Fire
| TV, etc) is a major strategic problem for the television brands
| you are probably most familiar with. The forementioned examples
| of content portals are coming from companies that are
| fundamentally based around advertising, and the companies that
| were traditionally about manufacturing realized that the
| advertising revenue opportunity was too good to give up. They
| are trying to grow their revenue, and profitability, and see
| that they won't be able to do so from their original core
| businesses. This is also why you're seeing all of these "FAST"
| (Free, Ad-supported Streaming Television) services popping up
| from the tv manufacturers themselves.
|
| Vizio, for example, was a value-oriented producer of
| televisions and related products. In 2021, as Vizio became a
| public company, they disclosed that they make more than twice
| the profit from their advertising/service business than their
| device sales
| (https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/10/22773073/vizio-acr-
| adver...). Walmart is now acquiring Vizio for that business and
| the opportunity to collect customer data
| (https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2024/02/20/walmart-
| agrees...).
|
| Roku is another good focused example because they are a
| publicly traded company and you can analyze their income
| statements and business model. Their hardware devices are
| basically being sold at cost or at a loss so they can seed the
| market and create an audience (i.e. their inventory) for their
| high-margin advertising services business.
|
| Google and Amazon also want a large piece of this pie. Apple is
| starting to show that they want advertising money too.
|
| We are also seeing cases where the television devices
| themselves can be produced cheap enough to be given away to
| users that opt into advertising (e.g. Telly:
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/15/23721674/telly-free-tv-
| st...). When this dynamic is economically viable (i.e. give
| away the hardware, make the money via ads), you can see how big
| of a problem traditional television device manufacturers have.
| navaed01 wrote:
| I've worked extensively with ACR technology in an applied
| setting. Happy to answer any questions
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| How do I disable it and make sure it stays disabled?
| buryat wrote:
| how much this data can sell for?
| avidiax wrote:
| What types of titles can ACR match to?
|
| 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?
| dewey wrote:
| > 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.
| card_zero wrote:
| I read somewhere - I think in a previous thread, about the
| New Scientist version of this story, where somebody posted
| text from a site selling ACR services - that the real
| interest lies in empirical measurement of what _adverts_
| you 're seeing, and the context that you see them in is of
| only secondary interest. I guess the ads you see could be
| matched up to what you buy. It's an "are our adverts
| working on this person?" question (and thus "can we show
| that our advertising service is worth buying"), more than a
| question of "what advert do we send this person next?"
| card_zero wrote:
| 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?
| bottom999mottob wrote:
| 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.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| It is in the paper:
|
| "We find that: (1) ACR network traffic exists when watching
| linear TV and when using smart TV as an external display
| using HDMI"
| card_zero wrote:
| But also that they send it in batches every 15 seconds
| (Samsung) or every minute (LG). The question is whether
| an offline TV will lie in wait to send all the data it
| collected in one massive batch, when and if it gets
| online. That wasn't tested.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Might be easier to aggregate data if it's all coming in in a
| similar way?
| card_zero wrote:
| Coming back to this, I see it's in the paper. There's a
| mention of copyright, and then:
|
| > Netflix prefers to have ACR deactivated during its
| streaming "in order to preserve the integrity of its
| subscribers viewing experiences and maintain sole control
| over measurement of its viewership" (Verance, 2020). The
| same reasoning applies to FAST channels, which LG and
| Samsung consider to be "aggregator apps" (Wolk, 2023),
| where providers may have agreements restricting ACR usage.
|
| In other words, FAST comes from other providers, who may
| complain. Random content over HDMI doesn't. However, this
| doesn't explain why they ignore video streamed from phones
| (tablets, laptops, etc) wirelessly.
| bentley wrote:
| 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?
| arcrwlock wrote:
| How does this interact with DRM? Does ACR still work if HDCP is
| being used?
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| How long until I get revenge on this world full of immoral
| people?
| card_zero wrote:
| What happened to stop you answering, were you kidnapped by LG?
| xnx wrote:
| Could ACR be used against its creators by creating a tool to
| detect and automatically block-out advertisements? (e.g. via an
| HDMI pass-through) There should be enough tell-tale signals
| (text, sound, number of scene changes, etc.) to distinguish
| advertisements from non-ad content.
| moandcompany wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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."
| jwr wrote:
| 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.
| LegitShady wrote:
| 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.
| ipython wrote:
| Why not take advantage of the subsidized price of the "smart"
| model, never plug it into the internet or connect it to wifi,
| and just plug in your devices of choice? Best of both worlds.
| schlipity wrote:
| I think the only real problem with that is at some point
| (if they aren't already) they will embed cellular modems
| and just exfiltrate the data that way. They do this now in
| cars, why not TVs too?
| m463 wrote:
| I worry that this is what 5g is designed for. Look up 5g
| mmtc.
| bitwize wrote:
| 1) From the perspective of the manufacturers that's theft
| of service. The manufacturers will implement measures to
| ensure your use of the TV is contingent upon them
| continuing data collecting and serving ads. Think TVs
| piggybacking off any available wireless connection (even
| LTE or 5G), or simply refusing to function until the
| network is set up.
|
| 2) That's still a lot of potentially crash-prone crud
| that's running. Better to just buy a Sceptre or maybe a
| large computer monitor, and have nothing running that isn't
| dedicated to "get pixels into eyeballs".
| nikisweeting wrote:
| I opened mine up and soldered the wifi antenna leads
| together, should stop that problem :)
| advael wrote:
| If this model of "theft of service" is legally
| enforceable, then significant swaths of this industry are
| engaging in false advertising and possibly full-on fraud
| by not making this agreement they're entering into clear
| to customers prior to their purchase of the device
|
| From an ethical perspective, you will never convince me
| to feel bad about any "theft" of this kind, and this kind
| of dilution of concepts like "theft" and "crime" is
| likely responsible for the emotional valence of those
| terms reading a lot less significantly negative to people
| keraf wrote:
| I run AdGuard at my parent's home and it's crazy the amount of
| logs (blocked DNS queries) I get from the TVs alone. Before
| that Windows was the biggest offender but I switched them to
| Linux Mint since.
| Groxx wrote:
| Mint has been _by far_ the most stable / least "requires CLI
| fix on a weekly basis" distro I've used so far, but I gotta
| ask: how's that working out?
|
| I like it a fair bit, but I've still had to figure out
| weirdly broken things like "captive portals always look like
| the wifi didn't connect at all, but `nmcli c up` fixes that"
| which I can't imagine most non-computer-oriented-Windows-
| haters in my life would be able to manage...
| teekert wrote:
| How long until these companies start hardcoding dns
| providers?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| A year or so ago, for google devices anyway.
|
| * https://www.reddit.com/r/OPNsenseFirewall/comments/12h1hh
| 7/i...
| djhworld wrote:
| Just taken a look at my Adguard Home query log for my TV, it
| seems to try and make hundreds of requests to
| "logs.netflix.com" for some reason - I'm not a subscriber to
| Netflix, I've never opened the Netflix app, I just turned on
| the TV and it's sitting on a HDMI source that's turned off so
| it isn't even doing anything
|
| ...and yet it keeps trying to connect to "logs.netflix.com" for
| reasons I do not understand. Granted, it could be just crappy
| retry logic, but still, why ping this endpoint when I'm not
| even using netflix!
| cebert wrote:
| Are there any brands that are known for respecting privacy more
| than others?
| quink wrote:
| 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.
| jwr wrote:
| > Pair with a Chromecast with Google TV
|
| 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.
| dewey wrote:
| > 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.
| rrdharan wrote:
| https://618media.com/en/blog/revenue-projections-for-
| apple-s...
| Nzen wrote:
| When this conversation has come up in the past, I've seen
| people recommend [0] business displays [1]. They are more
| expensive, of course, given that they are not subsidized by
| advertising.
|
| [0] ex https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24666968
|
| [1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tvs/commercial-
| tvs/pcmcat160199...
| bschwindHN wrote:
| So much engineering effort wasted with zero benefit to society.
| mway wrote:
| 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).
| gary_0 wrote:
| > 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.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| Call me naive, 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.
| gary_0 wrote:
| 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.
| sokoloff wrote:
| When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut.
|
| As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I
| a big fat liar?
| worble wrote:
| Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was
| yourself, and not millions of people.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath
| because they aged 15 years?
| appendix-rock wrote:
| > 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.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| And apologists are sometimes just that, too.
| exe34 wrote:
| no, money seems to only change people for the worse. the
| rich ones who are good were good all along.
| HeavenFox wrote:
| I would argue that aggregated, anonymous viewership data is a
| net positive to society, as it helps content creators better
| cater to demand
| chimpansteve wrote:
| 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
| developerDan wrote:
| "Reality TV" is a prime example of racing to the bottom of
| mass produced trash.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/newton-minow-
| discusses...
| djaychela wrote:
| No,it leads to content which is attention grabbing, not
| better. They are not the same thing.
| rollcat wrote:
| 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.
|
| Also somewhat related: https://rubenerd.com/stop-calling-
| people-content-creators/
| Ekaros wrote:
| Question about anonymous data is well, why not do it where
| the content originates? Sale of discs? Rental instances
| online. Number of times something was streamed... Why does it
| have to happen on end device, when it is entirely possible at
| source.
| 1317 wrote:
| broadcast has no return path
| eco wrote:
| Probably more importantly these days, neither do
| companies have access to data on their competitors. Your
| TV manufacturer will happily sell them some, though.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| > content creators better cater to demand
|
| That's actually the perfect description of why 'content
| creators' aren't called artists. They're not creative,
| they're regurgitative.
|
| Society needs not faded, watered down, muted copies of
| originals. It needs more originals to inspire more
| creativity.
|
| Originality is an art unto itself.
|
| What you are right about, however, is the profit inherent in
| bland copies, which means there's a market out there
| consisting of dumb, easily satisfied cattle, to be milked by
| the lazily regurgitative bottom feeders that know only
| 'what's trending' and have said subscribe! more often than
| they've had hot meals. Those saviours of society.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| 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.
| ok_dad wrote:
| This isn't some flowers that actual humans enjoy, it's
| fucking spying and it's ad industry bullshit. Don't try and
| put lipstick on a pig.
| chimpansteve wrote:
| 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.
| theodric wrote:
| This is an example of the broken window fallacy
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)
| card_zero wrote:
| It's a curious thing, though. We have this idea that
| economic activity with consent is beneficial, and without
| consent it's theft and harmful. But this is a rule of
| thumb. The vast majority of things people do are -
| variously - pointless, inefficient, sentimental,
| superstitious, idle, crazy, and otherwise indefensible
| _except_ by the reasoning that it 's our right to do what
| we like with what we own, what we've earned and paid for.
| This we call wealth, and having it makes us feel happy and
| secure, but to actually centrally analyze it and assess its
| usefulness would be a bad thing. That would only make its
| value evaporate. We want to be free to do dumb things, and
| not to be told.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Ad revenue means tvs priced for less than they ought to be,
| it's a trade-off for consumers. You could quibble about the
| externalities but it's ridiculous to suggest there's no upside,
| for anyone. If that were true they wouldn't sell.
| loa_in_ wrote:
| It's about as fair as burning own money to sell at loss to
| undermine competition I'm afraid.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| You can't claim something is a benefit for consumers if the
| consumers are not offered a competing product without the
| predatory features for more money. Let's put a 'dumb' TV on
| the market and regulate that 'smart' TV boxes have to say
| 'this is cheaper because we make most of our profit from it
| by screenshoting what you watch 100 times a second and
| selling it to the highest bidder' and see what the market
| thinks about it.
| m463 wrote:
| You could probably say the same of engineers/scientists that
| are employed by wall street or google/facebook/surveillance-
| advertising businesses.
| advael wrote:
| Could and would
| bottom999mottob wrote:
| 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.
| slothtrop wrote:
| It may happen. I think at present there is too little demand
| for comparatively expensive tvs that respect privacy. The tech
| is in a phase of diminishing returns, as televisions from over
| a decade ago still suit most people fine, and don't break that
| easily. Tech people were just turning off features they don't
| like (until, of course, that's no longer possible). But
| alongside the price-point, manufacturers are also playing a
| game of chicken expecting everyone to continue purchasing
| despite invasive features. At least among tech-oriented people
| it's possible that sales will slow down, but that might not
| matter enough for their bottom line to offer an alternative.
| There may be room for a competitor to try selling boutique tvs,
| but it's risky. "the market provides", but the demand needs to
| be strong enough.
| DylanDmitri wrote:
| A 32" computer monitor is awful similar to a dumb TV from 20
| years back. Projectors too.
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| 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).
| submeta wrote:
| Off topic: Anyone knows how a document like this is created? I
| find the layout very appealing. - In MS Word?
| KuzMenachem wrote:
| LaTeX
| starky wrote:
| The typeface is Computer Modern which indicates they likely
| used LaTeX.
|
| https://www.latex-project.org/
| jwr wrote:
| 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!".
| burnerthrow008 wrote:
| None of the major TV manufacturers is based in the US, so I
| guess we won't have to worry about the EU regulating ACR, will
| we?
|
| Apropos of nothing, what other country besides the US has a law
| that specifically prohibits giving a bribe to a foreign
| government?
| exe34 wrote:
| the UK
| swores wrote:
| UK only allows bribes (sorry, I meant to write "freebies")
| for domestic politicians, not foreign ones.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/28/mps-have-
| de...
| exe34 wrote:
| donations
| ben_w wrote:
| None of Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, or Google are
| based in the EU; all have faced issues due to operating in
| the EU.
|
| (Off the top of my head: USB-C, GDPR, Digital Services Act,
| Schrems, and anti-trust fines respectively).
| mmoskal wrote:
| I think the GP post meant that EU only wants to regulate
| tech if it's American.
| jajko wrote:
| You clearly dont know how regulation works, EU pushed many
| corporation to globally change their arrogant ways, ie apple
| dropping their proprietary plug, _globally_. Thats the power
| of half a billion relatively rich market.
|
| The other part is immature basic whataboutism that doesnt
| deserve a response, I am sure you can do better, and more on
| topic hopefully.
| stavros wrote:
| Never mind about the plug; we get _third party app stores_!
| bunabhucan wrote:
| [Laughs in CIA and Jared Kushner]
| buran77 wrote:
| > None of the major TV manufacturers is based in the US, so I
| guess we won't have to worry about the EU regulating
|
| The EU tries to regulate things that get too dangerous to its
| citizens. The important part though is enforcement which due
| to limited resources will inherently focus on the biggest
| players, where the impact is greatest. Players don't get
| bigger that US based big-tech. It's not unreasonable at all
| once you think about it.
|
| > what other country besides the US has a law that
| specifically prohibits giving a bribe to a foreign
| government?
|
| They allow and encourage lobbying which is literally used to
| the same effect. So it's a bit of a moot point, more like
| posturing than anything else... Much like some apropos :).
| tabiv wrote:
| You'll take my 2010 Sony Bravia panel over my dead body.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| lol, 2010 LCD with edge or a couple zone local dimming... Don't
| worry, no one is going to try and take your varying degrees of
| grey levels from you.
| yesssql wrote:
| Does this send screenshots when you're on HDMI? Wouldn't that be
| corporate espionage since most tech workers are from home now and
| lots use a small 4K TV for their PC?
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Yes. Also casts from phones and tablets. 100 times a second for
| LG and 2 times a second for Samsung, according to the paper.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-28 23:01 UTC)