To answer your question directly: I'm pointing out unexpected privacy pitfalls of using a smart TV's full set of features (i.e. running apps and using it ... as a monitor).
Although I agree with the point of your solution... I disagree with minimizing the danger of such anti-features.
To elaborate, try thinking of your average reasonable person and think of their journey into learning how to preserve their privacy without losing access to the features of the services and products they have paid for. Without a massive effort it is ultimately an oxymoron.
A reasonable person would expect that your (internet connected) smart TV would collect info to help them tailor future products based on their customer's usage (app usage frequency, standard or cable usage frequency, frequency of usage as external monitor). You would not expect to have to watch what you say in front of the such a device because they're literally listening to you [0] (in 2015, you needed to use the remote to use the voice detection service).
Additionally, reasonable user's of smart TV's (and other IoT devices) might feel like they are no longer tracked with their uniquely identifiable information because they turned off "targeted advertising" (if the service allows for setting that option), but that only prevents their advertising ID from being tracked [1].
Moreover, a reasonable person might expect that using a DNS-based blocklist would be a sort of "revocation of consent" to being tracked, but tracking services are savvy when it comes to PII exfiltration [2]:
> [...] We find that personally identifiable information (PII) is exfiltrated to platform-related Internet endpoints and third parties, and that blocklists are generally better at preventing exposure of PII to third parties than to platform-related endpoints. [...]
Finally, there have also been studies that show a lack of transparency when it comes to GDPR requests about the data collected through Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) [3].
So, my point is that "just don't use your product for most of its intended use" might be a thought-terminating cliche that prevents us from taking a step forward in stopping the normalization of unreasonable privacy transgressions (PII exfiltration, audio spying by third-party service providers, monitoring of external devices' screens).
To answer your question directly: I'm pointing out unexpected privacy pitfalls of using a smart TV's full set of features (i.e. running apps and using it ... as a monitor).
Although I agree with the point of your solution... I disagree with minimizing the danger of such anti-features.
To elaborate, try thinking of your average reasonable person and think of their journey into learning how to preserve their privacy without losing access to the features of the services and products they have paid for. Without a massive effort it is ultimately an oxymoron.
A reasonable person would expect that your (internet connected) smart TV would collect info to help them tailor future products based on their customer's usage (app usage frequency, standard or cable usage frequency, frequency of usage as external monitor). You would not expect to have to watch what you say in front of the such a device because they're literally listening to you [0] (in 2015, you needed to use the remote to use the voice detection service).
Additionally, reasonable user's of smart TV's (and other IoT devices) might feel like they are no longer tracked with their uniquely identifiable information because they turned off "targeted advertising" (if the service allows for setting that option), but that only prevents their advertising ID from being tracked [1].
Moreover, a reasonable person might expect that using a DNS-based blocklist would be a sort of "revocation of consent" to being tracked, but tracking services are savvy when it comes to PII exfiltration [2]:
> [...] We find that personally identifiable information (PII) is exfiltrated to platform-related Internet endpoints and third parties, and that blocklists are generally better at preventing exposure of PII to third parties than to platform-related endpoints. [...]
Finally, there have also been studies that show a lack of transparency when it comes to GDPR requests about the data collected through Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) [3].
So, my point is that "just don't use your product for most of its intended use" might be a thought-terminating cliche that prevents us from taking a step forward in stopping the normalization of unreasonable privacy transgressions (PII exfiltration, audio spying by third-party service providers, monitoring of external devices' screens).
[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31296188
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/11/20908128/smart-tv-survei...
[2]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.03447
[3]: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/electronic-electrical-engineering/news...