Vizio and Samsung smart TVs appear to keep sending viewing data after users opt out
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What happened
Northeastern University's 'Watching the watchers' study tested twelve smart TVs from ten manufacturers across eight operating systems, running over 5,000 automated sessions with ACR on and off. Vizio continued sending traffic to an Amazon Kinesis endpoint after opt-out, which the researchers could not inspect due to encryption, and Samsung's Tizen OS sent ACR-consistent traffic after opt-out in 7% to 20% of third-party streaming runs and 60% of HDMI sessions. Supersonic VIDAA sent unencrypted ACR data, and its servers exposed over 57 million detection results without login. Defenders should treat ACR opt-out as unreliable on some models and verify it through network monitoring where possible.
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What to do
- Turn off ACR in the smart TV settings and do not assume the opt-out is complete.
- Consider using a network monitor or firewall rules to check or block a TV's outbound traffic if the TV is a Vizio or Samsung model.
- Review whether a smart TV's viewing data tracking is acceptable before connecting it to your home network.
Written by AI from the sources, checked against them
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