$20M in Fines and Vizio Smart TVs Opt Out of Spying Option Does Nothing

A Northeastern University study tested whether smart TVs honor menu settings that promise to disable automatic content recognition (ACR), a form of viewing-data collection. Researchers ran 5,943 experiments on 12 televisions, comparing network traffic before and after opting out. They measured traffic volume and destinations rather than examining the data itself. TVs using webOS, Fire OS, Sony Google TV and VIDAA generally stopped ACR-related traffic after opting out. Samsung Tizen devices showed reduced or absent traffic in only some cases: ACR-consistent traffic persisted in more than 60% of tested scenarios.

Vizio performed worst: its SmartCast TVs continued sending traffic to a content-correlated Amazon Kinesis endpoint in every opt-out scenario, with no apparent change when tracking was disabled. The findings raise doubts about whether consumers can rely on privacy controls and suggest that enforcement may not have deterred continued data collection. Vizio had previously paid a $2.2 million FTC fine over failing to disclose its TVs’ data practices and lost a $17 million lawsuit. VIDAA-based TVs, including some Hisense and Toshiba models, did suppress ACR traffic when asked, but the researchers warn that collected ACR data is sent without encryption, potentially exposing sensitive viewing information.