CTV industry’s unprecedented “surveillance” - Ars Technica

I wrote about some of the frustrating privacy issues with Smart TV's in Weekly Thing 295. I was expecting this article to just be a restatement of stuff I’m already very aware of. And then I hit this line.

For example, Amazon Web Services and ad-tech company TripleLift are working with proprietary models and machine learning for dynamic product placement in streamed TV shows. The report, citing a 2021 AWS case study, says that "new scenes featuring product exposure can be inserted in real-time 'without interrupting the viewing experience.'"

So when you watch the show and when I watch it there is going to be different content? In yours the main character will drink a Coke and in mine a Mountain Dew? Because we've been surveilled and preferences are known. Or in one show the character will have Tide sitting out by the laundry, and in another will be an organic earth-friendly product? Creepy and lame. FWIW, this type of content ad targeting is all over the place in podcasts based on dynamically assembling audio segments. But taking it into the content is a whole new level.

I have disconnected all my Smart TV's from WiFi. These devices cannot be trusted. It annoys me since I am a bit OCD about applying firmware updates. But it helps to realize that the software updates for these Smart TV's are most likely surveillance updates.