It's not paranoia if your TV is really spying on you...

[Onamuji]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/24/vizio...scape-acr/

No need to tune in to a channel. Any picture displayed on the screen can and will be analyzed.

It knows what you're playing on your DVD player, and everything on Netflix and Chrome and Xbox and VLC and if you hook up an old VHS deck then it will know that, too -- and report to its corporate overlords.

This is not a prediction of the future. This is happening now.

[sekker]

Love it when $$ makes a company come clean...

[pRICE cUBE]

This is just the smart TVs or do those find a way to phone home also?

[RAMd®d]

This is just the smart TVs or do those find a way to phone home also?

?

Are you asking about their tablets and phones?

Apparently you can opt out to escape Inscape. You just "go to menu, settings, system,, reset and admin, highlight smart interactivity, press right arrow to chg to off". Easy peasy, if you know about it, and know how.

I'm wondering if the info is stored if the set isn't connected to the Internet.

And I'm wondering how many Vizio owners knew about this when it first started. Was in noted in an EULA somewhere? Hiding in "plain" sight?

[Onamuji]

RAMd®d wrote:
Apparently you can opt out to escape Inscape. You just "go to menu, settings, system,, reset and admin, highlight smart interactivity, press right arrow to chg to off". Easy peasy, if you know about it, and know how.

Just opts you out from the popups. Does not disable data-collection.

[freeradical]

I have a stupid TV. It has no interwebs connectivity. Smart and cheap...

[Bimwad]

I have a stupid TV. It has no interwebs connectivity. Smart and cheap...

Do you have cable? Satellite? Or a DVR?

STBs have long had the ability to tell the service provider what you're watching.

Such information has always been out there. Big Data is now about doing a better job of collecting, analysing and monetizing that information.

[m.paris]

It's no secret that TV's have been spying on us for years. That's why the TV announcers always say "We will see you again tomorrow."

[Marc Anthony]

RAMd®d wrote:
And I'm wondering how many Vizio owners knew about this when it first started. Was in noted in an EULA somewhere? Hiding in "plain" sight?

I own a Vizio smart TV. To my recollection, no EULA ever presented itself. If such a thing is in the manual, then I'm not bound by it, as I never read the manual and I don't know anyone who would. The setting to (allegedly) opt out of this Inscape spying technology is also buried under a reset control panel, where I never would have looked. Had I known this "feature" existed, I would have purchased a dumb TV from another manufacturer.

[Bill in NC]

Another reason I will be keeping my Panasonic plasma HDTVs until they die.

(actually, once they die I'll look for used models on craigslist).