The real problem isn’t that your Vizio Smart TV is watching you though, sure, that’s not good. The main issue is that when the Internet of Things becomes the thing, when everything is a computer, objects of all sorts will be quietly collecting information about us just the way the Internet does. There will be no opt-out switch, no notification, no hum to clue you in. The new arrangement will be silent and seem perfectly normal.

From Julia Angwin at ProPublica:

TV makers are constantly crowing about the tricks their smart TVs can do. But one of the most popular brands has a feature that it’s not advertising: Vizio’s Smart TVs track your viewing habits and share it with advertisers, who can then find you on your phone and other devices.

The tracking — which Vizio calls “Smart Interactivity” — is turned on by default for the more than 10 million Smart TVs that the company has sold. Customers who want to escape it have to opt-out. 
 
In a statement, Vizio said customers’ “non-personal identifiable information may be shared with select partners … to permit these companies to make, for example, better-informed decisions regarding content production, programming and advertising.”

Vizio’s actions appear to go beyond what others are doing in the emerging interactive television industry. Vizio rivals Samsung and LG Electronics only track users’ viewing habits if customers choose to turn the feature on. And unlike Vizio, they don’t appear to provide the information in a form that allows advertisers to reach users on other devices.•