Perhaps. But you also need to ask why Paxton is doing this as this case will vaporize as soon as that is accomplished. I would be much more optimistic if California were also signed onto this.
Paxton, however, doesn't give one iota of damn about individual freedom. So, this is either a misdirection, shakedown or revenge.
Unfortunately, we don't have Molly Ivins around anymore to tell us what is really going on here in the Texas Laboratory for Bad Government.
> So, this is either a misdirection, shakedown or revenge
This is about being in the news as much as possible. He is in a close 3 way race for the 2026 Republican spot for US Senate. The other two are current old-school conservative senator John Cornyn, and new comer MAGA Wesley Hunt (but not as MAGA as Paxton). Lots of in-fighting over funding, so Paxton is making sure to get in the news as much as possible.
Throughout the year he has been in the news for things that are useful like this and another suit against a utility company for causing a fire and others for typical maga things like lawsuit to stop harris county (Houston) funding legal services for immigrants facing deportation or immigrant-serving nonprofits or a "tip-line" for bathroom enforcement or lawsuits against doctors...it goes on and on and on. It's a page out of the Trump playblook, its like watching a trump clone. And thats the point.
I loathe whenever an older family member ends up at the TV menu, since chances are they will not be able to find their way back to whatever external device they were trying to use the TV as a monitor for. TVs using android seem to be irritated that you even plan on using some external device plugged into the HDMI ports.
You may want to look into an AVR (audio/video receiver), also known as a home theater receiver. Aside from powering speakers, that's their core function: connect a variety of inputs (HDMI, AirPlay, radio, composite, etc. etc.) to one or more outputs.
"The TVs “are effectively Chinese-sponsored surveillance devices, recording the viewing habits of Texans at every turn without their knowledge or consent,” the lawsuits said."
This explains why Vizio, who is owned by Walmart, was not sued.
Sony, Samsung, and LG are not Chinese companies but they are being sued. It's more likely that Vizio is not included because they already got hit by the FTC (but not hard enough to disable ACR).
"All of the big TV makers" except Vizio which is owned by Walmart, of course, who happens to do ACR and ad targeting:
> In August 2015, Vizio acquired Cognitive Media Networks, Inc, a provider of automatic content recognition (ACR). Cognitive Media Networks was subsequently renamed Inscape Data. Inscape functioned as an independent entity until the end of 2020, when it was combined with Vizio Ads and SmartCast; the three divisions combining to operate as a single unit.[1]
Well it wouldn't be Texas if there wasn't some grotesque corruption involved. Vizio is the absolute worst of the TV manufacturers when it comes to this shit, so now it's clear Texas is really just trying to bully Walmart's competition rather than do something positive for consumers.
Pro plaintif not only because of privacy concerns, but if it raises the cost of televisions by introducing a production inefficiency, it is one step against the Baumol Effect.
> "This conduct is invasive, deceptive, and unlawful. The fundamental right to privacy will be protected in Texas because owning a television does not mean surrendering your personal information to Big Tech or foreign adversaries."
But, but, but, you agreed to the TOS didn't you, or else you cannot use your TV.
Look at "Commercial" TVs. This is what they call dumb TV's nowadays. I guess they're mainly targeted at businesses who want a TV to for things like informational displays, conferences, etc.
I only found this out because I thought my 15 year old plasma TV had died, but it ended up being the power cord.
As long as the firmware is proprietary and cannot be inspected or modified, the only reliable way to avoid snooping by tech industry is not to connect any "smart" device to the Internet. Use the TV as a dumb monitor for a PC under your control (running Linux). If streaming service X will not run on Linux because DRM is not implemented or enforceable on a free device, do without it, or find alternative sources for the content (hint: Linux ISOs).
It seems like there is a big business opportunity for someone to create a box you attach to your network to filter outgoing info, and incoming ads. Too much work for a tiny team to research what everything is talking to, and MITM your devices and watch DNS queries, etc, but if there was something dead simple to block a Samsung fridge from getting to its ad server, I have to think it would sell.
I've had the advertising settings disabled on my LG C2 for a while and yesterday I decided to browse the settings menu again and found that a couple new ones had been added and turned on by default.
Sadly, it seems like the contingent of people who have a problem with Smart TVs is small but noisy, and has no real market power. If there were any significant number of people who would pay for a dumb high end TV, the market would sell them one.
Sort of reminds me how we complain loudly about how shitty airline service is, and then when we buy tickets we reliably pick whichever one is a dollar cheaper.
The problem is lack of information at time of purchase, in both cases. It's so onerous to figure out what these products are doing that people give up. Same in the airline case. If any of the airlines actually provided better service at a higher price, they'd have a market, but it's impossible to assess that as an end user with all the fake review bullshit that's all over the Internet these days.
The only cases where it's clearcut are a few overseas airlines like Singapore Airline who have such a rock solid reputation for great service that people will book them even if the price is 2x.
This sounds like victim blaming to me. "What do you mean you don't understand how software and the internet works and thought this was just a TV?!"
If you want to make a free market argument you need to look up what a free market is. In particular, consumers need to have perfect information. Do you really think if manufacturers were obligated to make these "features" clear that most people wouldn't care?
I've been shopping around specifically for this type of thing. There's two options: one is to buy a monitor display similar to what's in restaurants and retail stores and the other is to switch to a projector without smart features. The monitor displays, like your computer monitor, is even more expensive than regular TV's because they have special features that make them better to have on all the time at retail stores. They don't even have sound systems. The other option is projector displays which are generally the more sane option but they are not as easily installed. I suspect that privacy conscious consumers will go for projector displays as they aren't bundled with spyware. There's still risks like with the Roku TV box but it's much easier to replace the streaming unit. Apple TV claims that it doesn't utilize ACR so that's a solid choice but I would personally go for a Linux box with an HDMI out.
Ha, we had a company email to all employees saying that we are not allowed to view any company confidential material on any Samsung TVs and appliances because they will take a screenshot of whatever it is you are watching and send it back to Samsung, unless explicitly disabled in settings but that setting is frequently "bugged" and just turns itself back on after some firmware updates.
I'm happy to see it. They should have included Roku in that too!
> Roughly twice per second, a Roku TV captures video “snapshots” in 4K resolution. These snapshots are scanned through a database of content and ads, which allows the exposure to be matched to what is airing. For example, if a streamer is watching an NFL football game and sees an ad for a hard seltzer, Roku’s ACR will know that the ad has appeared on the TV being watched at that time. In this way, the content on screen is automatically recognized, as the technology’s name indicates. The data then is paired with user profile data to link the account watching with the content they’re watching.
I'd like to weaponize all this scanning into a force for good. Instead of phoning home to Roku, send the fingerprints up to an ADID database registering every ad on the planet. Open up an API so that any video stream can detect an ad and inject Max Headroom replacement clips.
Come on hackers. We could murder the global economy with this shit.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] thread.its an insane lawsuit, there are basically two outcomes crazy side effects from his lawsuit:
Tvs are banned. (Possibly can only texas permitted tv)
Or if he loses, which might be his donors goal of him litigating so terribly, all your data now belongs to the companies.
Theres no consumer friendly option here
Paxton, however, doesn't give one iota of damn about individual freedom. So, this is either a misdirection, shakedown or revenge.
Unfortunately, we don't have Molly Ivins around anymore to tell us what is really going on here in the Texas Laboratory for Bad Government.
This is about being in the news as much as possible. He is in a close 3 way race for the 2026 Republican spot for US Senate. The other two are current old-school conservative senator John Cornyn, and new comer MAGA Wesley Hunt (but not as MAGA as Paxton). Lots of in-fighting over funding, so Paxton is making sure to get in the news as much as possible.
Throughout the year he has been in the news for things that are useful like this and another suit against a utility company for causing a fire and others for typical maga things like lawsuit to stop harris county (Houston) funding legal services for immigrants facing deportation or immigrant-serving nonprofits or a "tip-line" for bathroom enforcement or lawsuits against doctors...it goes on and on and on. It's a page out of the Trump playblook, its like watching a trump clone. And thats the point.
From there I could pick an app or input on the Apple TV and then I'm good.
That's all I want, nothing these TVs try to provide I want, quite the opposite.
I loathe ending up on the TV menu...
This explains why Vizio, who is owned by Walmart, was not sued.
> In August 2015, Vizio acquired Cognitive Media Networks, Inc, a provider of automatic content recognition (ACR). Cognitive Media Networks was subsequently renamed Inscape Data. Inscape functioned as an independent entity until the end of 2020, when it was combined with Vizio Ads and SmartCast; the three divisions combining to operate as a single unit.[1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizio
If this case succeeds, suing Visio on the same charges would be a cakewalk.
But, but, but, you agreed to the TOS didn't you, or else you cannot use your TV.
I like the suggested "Don't Upload My Bits" backronym.
I only found this out because I thought my 15 year old plasma TV had died, but it ended up being the power cord.
Good times.
Sort of reminds me how we complain loudly about how shitty airline service is, and then when we buy tickets we reliably pick whichever one is a dollar cheaper.
The only cases where it's clearcut are a few overseas airlines like Singapore Airline who have such a rock solid reputation for great service that people will book them even if the price is 2x.
If you want to make a free market argument you need to look up what a free market is. In particular, consumers need to have perfect information. Do you really think if manufacturers were obligated to make these "features" clear that most people wouldn't care?
But yes.
> Roughly twice per second, a Roku TV captures video “snapshots” in 4K resolution. These snapshots are scanned through a database of content and ads, which allows the exposure to be matched to what is airing. For example, if a streamer is watching an NFL football game and sees an ad for a hard seltzer, Roku’s ACR will know that the ad has appeared on the TV being watched at that time. In this way, the content on screen is automatically recognized, as the technology’s name indicates. The data then is paired with user profile data to link the account watching with the content they’re watching.
https://advertising.roku.com/learn/resources/acr-the-future-...
I wouldn't be surprised if my PS5 was doing the same thing when I'm playing a game or watching a streaming service through it.
Come on hackers. We could murder the global economy with this shit.
I guess I can always just refuse the TV OS access to the wifi, assuming they're not using 4G modems.
I'm indifferent to YouTube have frame-by-frame nanodata about me.
But as a Roku user, this snap shotting makes me very angry.
Maybe because much of what I watch on my TV via my Roku is content I own and stream from my personal server?
I expect my media app, ie. YouTube, to know what I watch from the media app. YouTube knows about YouTube.
My operating system, ie. Roku, should not know about what's happening inside a given app. ie. Roku does not know about YouTube.
When they start crossing layers, that greatly upsets me.