"Did you know that whenever you turn on your smart TV, you invite an unseen guest to watch it with you? These days, most mainstream TVs use automatic content recognition (ACR), a type of ad-tracking technology that collects data on everything you watch and sends it to a central database. Manufacturers then use this information to understand your viewing habits and deliver highly targeted ads."
"According to The Markup, ACR can capture and identify up to 7,200 images per hour, or approximately two images every second. This extensive tracking offers money-making insights for marketers and content distributors because it can reveal connections between viewers' personal information and their preferred content. By "personal information," I mean email addresses, IP addresses -- and even your physical street address."
Most mainstream TVs use automatic content recognition (ACR) to collect data on viewing habits and send that information to centralized databases. ACR runs like a constant, Shazam-like service, identifying content from cable boxes, streaming services, and gaming consoles by capturing continuous screenshots and cross-referencing them with a vast media database. ACR can capture up to 7,200 images per hour, exposing detailed viewing behavior. Collected data can be linked to personal information such as email addresses, IP addresses, and even physical street addresses. Advertisers spent an estimated $18.6 billion on smart TV ads in 2022. Disabling ACR can protect privacy but often requires effort.
Read at ZDNET
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