I finally took the plunge and bought a new TV today. Using a mass of Nectar points accumulated from food shopping over the past decade or so, I managed to get a good deal on a new low-end model. To be honest, I rarely watch the TV. Any viewing that I do have time for inevitably tends to be on the laptop these days. But the difference between the two models, old and new, is pretty significant. If nothing else, I have no idea how to get the old TV down the stairs – it’s that heavy.
But the whole experience of buying a new piece of tech – as exciting as that invariably is for anyone with geek-tendencies – was tempered by the story in the back of my mind about the recent Samsung Smart TV. These once-simple appliances have become completely different propositions these days, as Michael Price in Salon pointed out late last year (‘I’m terrified of my new TV: Why I’m scared to turn this thing on – and you’d be too‘).
We’re suddenly in a world where so-called Smart TV’s record our activities and choices, retaining the power to send such information on to marketers and other third parties to do as they wish. The decision to be made by many consumers is in many ways an unfair one: disable many of your all-singing all-dancing new TV’s features or accept one further encroachment into your privacy.
As you might remember, the worrying issue with the Samsung Smart TV was the fact that it had voice recognition. Or, more accurately, because of the voice recognition features that it employs, the Privacy Policy for the TV shows that in fact anything you say in the vicinity of the television may in fact be recorded and transmitted to a third party for analysis. When that’s a marketing company, it’s little more than irritating perhaps. But there’s no guarantee that the data exchange stops there.
One of the biggest issues is the fact that Samsung is sending the customer’s voice searches and data in an unencrypted format. Think of the potential for hackers and snoopers to literally listen in.
Yeah, it was a lot simpler the first time I bought my TV. Even if it weighs about the same as my fridge and is almost as attractive…..