Samsung Smart TVs have not been having a good couple of days. At first there was a small negative reaction to a warning in the privacy policy that advised users to not discuss sensitive information in front of the tv because it could be listening in. Now, it has been discovered to be inserting advertisements into third party media players.
Parallels were drawn between George Orwell’s 1984 and Samsung’s Smart TV privacy policy after users were warned to watch what they say in front of the device. Part of the policy warned that the Smart TV is actively listening to conversations in order to take advantage of the voice command features, it also went on to say that the commands are processed by a third party. This brought worries that all information would be recorded and stored for some nefarious purpose.
Samsung has come forth and clarified that the language used was inaccurate, as the voice commands on work when the feature is turned on; and that it will only be searching for specific keywords instead of listening in to whole conversations. It is more likely that the original wording was in place to protect Samsung from liability in the event that a data breach did occur; although that perhaps had the wrong effect on users.
Elsewhere, Samsung Smart TV users are also reporting seeing audio-less Pepsi advertisements appearing on their own offline content. Users of Plex, a third party app that allows for playing video, ended up trapped watching the ads every 30 minutes or so; despite playing content from their own storage devices. Other users on separate third party apps also reported seeing the ads appearing.
Samsung has not commented on the issue, but it appears to be intentional. Smart TV users are able to opt out of the ads from the privacy policy menu, which shows that seeing ads is an attempt to monetise the content. While it is known that all smart TV manufacturers are trying to serve ads on their platforms to increase revenue, this is the first time that anyone has tried inserting ads into content belonging to someone else.
Two pieces of bad news in the same week is not something that Samsung would like as it gets closer to Samsung Unpacked, where people expect the company to reveal its next flagship smartphone. With any luck, that device won’t be spying on us either.
[Source: Ars Technica, The Verge 1, 2]
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