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Study finds Vizio TVs keep sending tracking data after opt-out

Northeastern University researchers tested 12 smart TVs across 10 brands and found Vizio's SmartCast continued sending the same volume of traffic to an Amazon Kinesis server linked to automatic content recognition even after users opted out, in all 30 test runs. Samsung's own streaming service showed similar behavior, while LG, Fire TV, VIDAA and Sony's Google TV stopped sending data once users opted out. Vizio's free WatchFree+ service also sends unencrypted show and channel names via DNS lookups to partner Amagi, with no option to disable it.

techspot.com · 2026-11-03

Northeastern study finds Vizio, Samsung TVs keep tracking after users opt out

A Northeastern University study ran 5,943 experiments across twelve smart TV platforms and found that automatic content recognition (ACR) tracking often continues even after viewers disable it. Vizio's SmartCast devices sent data to an Amazon Kinesis endpoint in 100% of opted-out test scenarios, while Samsung Tizen devices showed ACR-like traffic in over 60% of cases; only four operating systems fully honored opt-out requests.

entertainment.slashdot.org · 2026-11-02