Vizio has been already caught and fined for spying on users through their Smart TVs; it might not be just about pushing ads but also buying access to users data. Either way, it stinks.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/02/08/shocking...

There's an easy fix to this. Just use a bit of the savings from your ad-subsidized TV to buy a Chromecast. The continuous HDMI input makes it look like the TV is never idle (so it can't show ads), and when the Chromecast itself is idle it just shows you pictures from your photo albums instead of ads, and you still have a smart TV

What is the up-front price impact of these ad services? Or, what would a representative 'smart tv' cost if the vendor only needed to accommodate apps and upscaling/pq stuff, and did not need ACR on the TV and the backend infrastructure to support it?

I think we're told the advertising stuff is really beneficial because it makes the products available at a lower price point, to more people. Is this really true?

Just bought a "smart" TV from Costco after careful research to insure that it could be configured to use as a "dumb" display.

I will add my own "smarts" that I can control, thank you very much. The TV is not connected to the internet and has no way to ascertain the source of the info being displayed on it.

It's sad and kinda disgusting that you have to go to such lengths just to watch TV and video in private.

How about not watching tv