[HN Gopher] An ad giant wants to control your next TV's OS
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An ad giant wants to control your next TV's OS
Author : speckx
Score : 20 points
Date : 2024-11-21 19:30 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| willio58 wrote:
| This is already extremely common. For example, my TV uses some
| sort of Roku-branded OS. They literally have ads on the home
| screen when you first turn on the TV. It's something I've
| struggled to work around, and eventually gave up. I just kind of
| avert my eyes until my Apple TV kicks in.
|
| I feel like this should be illegal. It's kind of like billboards
| on the side of the road, it's something I never want to say but
| it's forced upon me. I bought your product, why is it allowed
| that you can just throw ads on it? I understand they sometimes
| sell these TVs at a slight loss to make up for that, but I feel
| like they should be required to sell the same TV without Ads for
| the same 3% margin added on. I bet most people would pay for the
| latter if it was provided.
| dartos wrote:
| Just buy a TV without ads.
|
| Free market at work.
|
| /s
| tencentshill wrote:
| You can for an excessive price. Most commercial outdoor-rated
| panels are just simple HDMI or network inputs.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Nonsense. Buy an LG TV of any kind. Never connect it to the
| internet. Plug in an Apple TV (or Linux HTPC box of your
| choice). Ad-free TV at consumer prices.
|
| edit: not just OLED
| lstodd wrote:
| Why even buy a TV? Buy a screen and a projector.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| TVs are more compact for smaller rooms, brighter in
| sunlight.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Pretty sure all new TVs have HDMI CEC, so you can just buy
| any TV, connect it to a $100 to $150 Apple TV/Nvidia
| shield/google thing or whatever and have no ads (from tv
| manufacturer).
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| Nope, at least last I saw around 2021, Samsung and LG were
| moving their commercial displays to include Tizen and WebOS
| as well.
|
| I don't know about the other supliers though.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _I bought your product, why is it allowed that you can just
| throw ads on it?_
|
| I think you've answered your own question here.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You can change the settings to switch directly to the HDMI port
| connected to your AppleTV.
|
| The AppleTV remote will also turn your TV on and off
| automatically
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| What a coincidence, an ad giant (Google) controls my current TV's
| OS and I had to accept a EULA to use it.
| barkerja wrote:
| If you didn't accept the EULA, does it render the entire TV
| inoperable? Or just the "smart" features?
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Not my TV and this is Roku but I imagine they all have
| similar language:
|
| "If you do not agree to this EULA, you do not have the right
| to use the Television or the Software"
|
| https://www.tcl.com/us/en/roku-tv/eula
| mysterydip wrote:
| It should be required to have the EULA on the box before
| purchase, like the nutrition label for food.
| observationist wrote:
| EULAs like this should be illegal. Comparable to
| "Warranty void if this sticker is damaged" type
| scenarios.
|
| The enormous "gotcha" games being played under the guise
| of "if it's not illegal, we're going to exploit it" are
| grotesque. TVs are just one of hundreds of examples of
| products and services being used to invade and exploit
| privacy with no commensurate return on value for what's
| being exploited.
|
| We need a law constraining this shit to 100% opt-in
| voluntary features with no dark patterns, with penalties
| for anything that even vaguely looks like a dark pattern.
| Fines and jail time time for c-suite for any violations,
| enough that they'll stop playing the stupid games.
| andremedeiros wrote:
| I would 100% vote for you!
| bdangubic wrote:
| there is a MUCH better chance that Black Trans person
| gets elected President of USA than this :)
| amatecha wrote:
| I bought an NVIDIA Shield, but promptly returned it to the
| store because it will not function without signing into a
| Google account -- a requirement which was not mentioned on the
| packaging nor in the printed documents in the box. TBH kinda
| ultra sick of corporations having unilateral encumbrances on
| your rights and freedoms to use literally anything
| technological.
| dartos wrote:
| Can my TV not have a whole OS?
|
| I'm just going to use the hdmi ports.
| daemin wrote:
| Maybe it's time people started hacking the TVs and getting
| custom OSes running on them.
|
| Though I suspect that the processors inside TVs don't have
| publicly available datasheets, and the actual boards get
| changed pretty often, so it will be a lot of work for little
| payoff.
|
| One thing to look at though is to see if your TV has a signage
| or commercial mode, and switch to using that instead.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Would be nice to have a "minimal OS" that just does what u
| want. Select a hdmi port, change volume, yada ya.
| mxuribe wrote:
| One would think that this would represent an opportunity in the
| market to, you know, sell TVs that only do their basic function,
| and not try to tack on ads and such, right? Or, is it that not
| enough people care about this stuff...so the masses simply put up
| with it, and move about their lives...and Tv makers (and other
| device manufacturerers) go with the flow of taking as much
| advantage as possible?
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Our idiocracy would decry that as some sort of antiquated
| Luddite device and it wouldn't sell in enough volume to make a
| profit.
| vincent-manis wrote:
| I have a smart TV running Roku. I still use cable (for news), so
| the other 2 sources I see are the 2 computers I have connected.
| The only time I ever see Roku is when I'm selecting a source. The
| TV is smart, but I'm smarter: no Ethernet cable.
| davesmylie wrote:
| I haven't seen any ads on my HiSense TV (low end/budget brand),
| though I have been concerned about updates eventually bringing me
| this feature.
|
| The TV is pretty much exclusively used as a 85" monitor for a
| media PC so I think the risk is low, but this was the final
| prompt to finally block internet access for the TV at the router.
|
| I didn't want to completely block it from the network as it's
| useful being able to hook into it from Home Assistant
| geor9e wrote:
| I will never use a TV's OS for more than the first 5 minutes it
| takes to turn on HDMI CEC as default. That lets the device on the
| other end turn it on and off, change the volume, etc. I recently
| had Best Buy deliver a 75 inch, only cost me $350, probably
| because the little garbage computer inside is loaded with ads.
| I'll never know.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I was wondering about current work-arounds. I was also thinking
| hacker-sponsored OS overrides for various TVs are coming
| (similar to rootMyTv).
| m0llusk wrote:
| customers do not want this, thus this is a business opportunity
| layer8 wrote:
| That's unfortunately not how the market works in practice.
| hiisukun wrote:
| I recently bought a TV (HiSense) after a very quick bit of
| research about the dimensions and the fact that it had GoogleTV
| as the OS.
|
| Unfortunately for me, the operating system for many TVs is region
| specific! Once the product appeared on Hisense's Australian page
| it did mention having VIDAA instead of GoogleTV, but this was
| after I had purchased it. I can confirm that VIDAA is quite bad,
| demanding agreement to several fairly ad-driven user agreements
| before you can use any smart features. "Enhanced Viewership
| Program" or something, which in the text says that VIDAA will
| monitor what you are watching on the screen, then use that
| information to display relevant ads. Yuck.
|
| Fortunately it does switch to HDMI when you turn it on, but I've
| got to decide what system I get to drive that HDMI port. I wanted
| not to have to bother with an additional device, but that's how
| it is I guess.
|
| As a bonus comment, VIDAA's kid-mode- content includes a very
| large number of purported TV programs - but they are actually
| Youtube playthroughs of video games, cut into "episodes" and
| presented as a "season".
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