Tracking disabled but communications continue

Disabling the advertising tracking feature on a connected television may not always be sufficient to stop its communications with servers responsible for analyzing viewed programs. An American study reveals suspicious exchanges between Samsung and Vizio, raising serious questions about privacy protection.

Researchers tested multiple Smart TV brands

American researchers examined the network communications of several Smart TVs to verify whether manufacturers actually respected users' choices. They discovered that some devices continued to communicate with servers associated with content tracking, even after this function was disabled.

ACR technology and its implications

According to an investigation published by Ars Technica, researchers from Northeastern University studied the network communications of 12 televisions belonging to ten different brands. In total, they conducted nearly 6,000 experiments to observe the behavior of these devices in various situations. They focused on ACR, Automatic Content Recognition.

Samsung and Vizio show persistent behavior

On Samsung televisions running on Tizen, researchers observed communications with servers associated with ACR in several situations, including when using the built-in applications, traditional television, or an HDMI source. With Vizio, the results are even more surprising: network exchanges persisted in 100% of the tested scenarios after the tracking was refused.

Encrypted data limits conclusions

The researchers observed network traffic, but they could not determine exactly what was being transmitted. These communications are encrypted, which prevents knowledge of their content. Therefore, nothing proves that Samsung or Vizio continue to collect viewed programs after users have refused them.

Possible solutions and limitations

The study authors also propose several solutions to limit these exchanges. The first consists of blocking the domains associated with ACR from the router, using a list of addresses they have published. An operation that requires some technical knowledge. The other possibility is more radical: completely disconnecting the television from the Internet and using an external box that does not practice this type of content recognition.