[samstave]

So, I worked there along with the others who are all HN regulars. I cant comment on this fine at all, but I can comment on the reaction:

The system for identifying an individual via their digital habits is advanced and (in internet terms) ancient.

The credit card industry, for example, is way more an invasion of your privacy than what are effectively Neilsen Ratings on steroids... so I think people over react to this.

The fact is, that if you look at netflix, they have way more specific viewing habit info than any random TV which can state what it is watching. They already have their customer info, demographics, if they have kids, if they have account leechers like a brother or a friend who maintains a profile. They can see what IP/Device/app install anything is coming from -- and they have agreements with various device manufacturers to NOT track their (Netflix's) viewership/app use etc...

Netflix is probably the most savvy digital media company at this point.

While this data will enrich various entities over time at the expense of 100% privacy as to the content one is viewing, I would state that one would be better served to be worried about their chrome and credit card history than the viewing of particular TV shows.

Additionally - having a very intimate knowledge of how the vizio system works, I would not be concerned about this at all in the scheme of things as truly, its literally impossible to have a system watching all media streams on TVs throughout the world.

Finally, Vizio has done a stand-up job of enforcing opt-in/opt-out in the actual firmware of every set.

[sib]

While Netflix does have a lot of data about what you watch on Netflix, I believe that the reason people react so strongly to things like this is that, as the platform provider, using automated content recognition and other techniques, Vizio (or Samsung, ...) can know everything that you watch across all sources flowing through the TV. Even including things such as YouTube, linear broadcast TV, etc. That's a lot broader surface area than Netflix has...

[samstave]

This is not feasibly accurate currently.

There are contractual stipulations, by companies such as netflix, for example, that preclude image sensing on screens. (Netflix doesnt want anyone else having their viewer data as one logical argument) -- that doesnt mean that Netflix doesnt share viewer data with other third parties... [I have no idea if they do, I havent read their policy]

but here is the issue that 99% of people fail to get: The TV can only ID what it is that you are watching if the system has also been watching the same video/seen the same video/is also watching the same in real-time as you watch it.

So, yeah, it is impossible to ID any and all.

Further, the agreements between companies like vizio and others are very specific as to what is legal and allowed.

Having been-there -- These guys are on the up-and-up and while we all want to have the right to do anything we want in secret, there is nothing to panic about. However, there is a larger question that is raised regarding privacy; We already have laws around PCI/PII/Med data -- media consumption data is an open issue; How much behavioral data do you think Facebook has? "Show me the total count of males in Brazil between the age of 18-24 that identifies as single and lives within 50 miles of Rio who liked [object] where name begins with the letter 'R'" -- Yeah, I wouldnt worry about what TV Show a Vizio TV reported as displaying.

The FB example shows that you were at your machine, and clicked on the [object] etc...

Vizio(and all other brands) TVs are running in kiosk/unattended mode all over the place. How many screens in every sports bar were on last night? Well, they can certainly ID the # of TVs that were watching the Superbowl, but there are likely >~1 person at each screen. So, the worry about your demographics is meaningless in this case. Same as an election/election-debate.

But, as an aggregate you can see where the attention of the millions of TVs are pointed.

Like I said - it is simply neilsen ratings, but much much more accurate.

[CamperBob2]

Like I said - it is simply neilsen ratings, but much much more accurate.

You keep saying that. But if I'm not mistaken, Nielsen families are paid for their participation. When can I expect a check from Vizio?

[samstave]

Thats why it is opt-in.... just like every other form of in-line marketing.

Are you expecting a check from google for your use of Gmail? Whats more invasive, Google reading your emails to mom about your colonoscopy, or the fact that Vizio knows that your TV watched the superbowl last night?

[CamperBob2]

Thats why it is opt-in.... just like every other form of in-line marketing. Are you expecting a check from google for your use of Gmail?

Hmm, I may not be entirely up to speed on what happened here. If so, I apologize. The lead paragraph of the story says (in part) that Vizio "installed software on its TVs to collect viewing data on 11 million consumer TVs without consumers’ knowledge or consent," and that's what my comment was based on.

So if the service was "opt-in," as with the Nielsen business model, then why are they being forced to pay a seven-figure fine?

[samstave]

"installed software" is a bit of a misnomer - its a feature baked into the firmware, when you first setup the TV it asks you for permission to do enhanced content recognition. If you say yes, it will enable the system - if you say no, the TV will never send data of fingerprints on the screen.

[TeMPOraL]

I can encrypt my e-mail. Can I encrypt my video signal so that the TV doesn't read it off?

Also, Gmail gives me a pretty damn good service in exchange for me allowing them to read my e-mail - I get free search, categorization and arguably the best spam filtering solution in the world. What do I get from Vizio in exchange for all its spying?

[throwaway160303]

A cheaper TV - or to go a level deeper, still having the manufacturer in question in the business of making TVs. TVs, and more generally high-unit-volume embedded hardware products, are incredibly competitive. This is particularly true at the price points where Vizio moves significant volume. Margins were squeezed to zero years ago.

[nitrogen]

The TV can only ID what it is that you are watching if the system has also been watching the same video/seen the same video/is also watching the same in real-time as you watch it.

Aren't there digital watermarks on all broadcast TV shows and advertisements? If not, if there's a fingerprinting algorithm that can run on a screen's hardware, or filename matching for USB, media could still be identified. No need for the rest of "the system" to have video files in advance, or at all.

[samstave]

Sort of - but not quite.

Think of it like this; people are concerned that the system can do Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, How-Much, Who-do-they-know,... etc,...

It cant. Surely things can be inferred... but nothing that should get you riled up any-more-so than any other online service you have ever used. Plus - the opt-out functions actually work.

[ysavir]

> Plus - the opt-out functions actually work

But are users (such as myself) made aware of this opt out?

> It cant.

It can't... Or it can't yet?

[hrehhf]

> There are contractual stipulations, by companies such as netflix, for example, that preclude image sensing on screens.

So you're saying Vizio and Netflix have a contract such that Vizio TVs will not report to Vizio about what is being displayed on the screen if its a Netflix stream? That sounds dubious. Maybe they could have a built-in Netflix app ignore such content, but what about Netflix streamed from a separate device via HDMI?

[samstave]

Yes.

but you have to think about the economics of the ingest side... how much does it cost to, as a client, ingest every single netflix show. Not going to happen. Plus it violates lots of various companies TOS.

This is a non-issue, IMO, and people shouldnt worry about it to the same extent that one should worry about FB and GOOG and AAPL's abilities...

This is a scape-goat.

[ysavir]

It's not at all a scape-goat. It might be a minor player, but not a scapegoat. And as a minor player, it's been coasting under the radar. At least we try to keep tabs on Facebook and Google, etc.

Your defensiveness of Vizio is offsetting, as if covering for something. Should I be worried, and swap out my Vizio for a different company's television?

[samstave]

If you just set your TVs country to Mexico it effectively disables ACR data collection....

[knappe]

That and they weren't exactly upfront about their collection.

[xanderstrike]

Can you expand a little on how the article said the identification worked? It says it takes a set of pixels, does this patch of pixels get stored? How big is it? If it's stored, how is it protected? Is it encrypted at rest?

I have a Visio TV, I use it as a computer monitor. There's every possibility that PII or plaintext credentials might have been transmitted as part of this collection scheme. What did you do to mitigate that danger?

[samstave]

no pii is detected or ever "seen" by the system.

The way the system works is that there are a series of patches on the screen, and the RGB values of the collection of patches is captured and creates a fingerprint of what is being displayed on the screen.

This fingerprint is sent to the detection engine that has a DB of all the screens that were ingested into the content DB.

The system simply looks up the fingerprint value against the vast DB to see if it was something that was ingested.

The only thing ingested are broadcast television shows. no netflix youtube etc...

So anytime you use the screen as a monitor, or a kiosk, or a security camera display - anything other than an actual television - the system will not recognize that you're watch Ellen at 4pm PST and are currently 10 minutes into the show.

Thats all it does.

The goal was to have overlay events that allow for interactivity if a certain show or commercial is shown. That system didnt really make it too far in production.

Finally, if youre using a TV as a monitor - the system will see that they have never detected anything from that particular TV and it will simply ignore it. At certain points all the TVs that had never detected any TV ACR were just turned off and told to not talk to the system at all.

There really is nothing personal to worry about with this, IMO - and I am not "defending Vizio" -- I just know very intimately how the thing works as I helped build some of it, and I know that its not nearly as invasive as people think.

For example - there is a lot of foreign content on TV - spanish, chinese, filipino, indian, etc... none of this is ingested and never detected.