I have, over the years, watched as our TV has become more intrusive and abusive. Every software update takes it up a notch.

As I say in a Reddit post [0], I didn’t go to the store to buy a remotely controlled ever-changing remotely-controlled digital advertising platform to hang in our family room.

I didn’t go to the store to buy a data gathering device to plant into my home.

I didn’t go to the store to provide a TV manufacturer with, as they say in their newest terms of service:

“grant and agree to grant to VIZIO and its affiliates and licensees, a non-exclusive, transferable, revocable, royalty-free right and license (with right to sublicense) to use, reproduce, publicly display, publicly perform, adapt, collect, modify, delete from, distribute, transmit, promote and make derivative works of the VIZIOgram Content, in any form”

This device, which cost well over $2,000 is the source of stress and consternation.

When family and friends come over for a visit, it is impossible to control what they click on. The “home page” is full of ads.

They have a service through which you upload your family photos into their cloud service. The above license is just one aspect of what they grab from consumers without consent.

I say “without consent” because of several realities.

  • They do not make you read and sign anything when you buy the product. Go to the store to buy a TV. You walk away with a big box and no disclosures of any kind. The plastic bag they ship it in has more visible disclosures than the device itself.

  • How about the terms of use/service? Nobody reads 34 pages of nonsense (assuming they can find it).

  • If you have the TV installed by the shop where you bought it, they set it up and walk away. You never agreed to anything.

  • They constantly change and update firmware and TOU/S. You never agree to anything.

In short, they take advantage of consumers and tend to become abusive about just how far they push it. This multi-thousand-dollar TV is now a fully remote-controlled digital ad serving system in my family room. That is not what I signed-up for and not what I bought at all.

I just want a TV.

What about watching network TV with ads? Isn’t that an advertising platform in your home?

Sure, except that I can choose to tune in or not. And the TV station doesn’t modify the software in my TV to deliver more and more ads into my screen.

Interestingly enough, in a prior job I designed image processing boards to drive LCD and other display modules. Part of me has been thinking it is time to engineer a “TV Lobotomizer” board that can be used to modify these TV’s and completely remove all such capabilities while (via open source) giving the consumer full control of what happens with their TV.

Sorry if that came off as a huge rant. With the last software update this thing has just gone over a threshold that is simply intolerable. Actively looking for solutions.

I think this kind of consumer protection has to be undertaken by government. I am not one to automatically reach for that kind of a solution. However, it has become beyond clear that TV manufacturers are perfectly happy abusing consumers as far as they can go. The only expedient way to fix this might be some kind of a law that forces full user control of every single feature on a TV and an absolute iron-clad privacy requirement. If a customer chooses to pierce that protection, they should be free to do so after informed consent and have every right to take it all back.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/VIZIO_Official/comments/162xuop/p75qxh1_ready_to_hire_an_attorney/

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.