common advice is to never connect your smart TV to the network. Only use the HDMI inputs.
Lets not forget that any "Smart" TV that has voice control can probably record audio in your home at any time.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/02/samsung_telev...
Any "Smart" TV that has a camera to see who is watching (to customize content and ads) does just that...
I became fully aware of this when a few months ago, my Xiaomi smart TV turned on by itself and displayed an AD to subscribe to Netflix (I did have the Netflix app installed because I had an account a while ago, but I had already unsubscribed, I simply forgot to uninstall the app).
Needless to say, from that moment onwards, no wifi and no ethernet for the TV. I got an Xbox with Kodi connected to it. I am not saying the Xbox is immune to data harvesting (probably they collect a fair bit), but feels less intrusive and obnoxious than the whole package of the smart TV.
What they're attempting to do seems fundamentally impossible to me. Personalization requires there is a specific person tied to the output. With phones and PCs, that's a fairly reasonable assumption. With a television, it quite often isn't. Services allow you to create individual "who is watching" profiles, but the reality at least for my family is no one uses those. We all watch from the same account and same profile. We also watch together, in which case there is no answer to a question that assumes only one person can watch at a time. Sometimes, no one is watching and the stream is simply left on while everyone is sleeping or out of the house and autoplay is streaming to an empty room. Sometimes, we leave things on intentionally for the cats. My wife has ADHD and puts something on only to walk away two minutes later, but it's still on.
In some extremely dystopian future that I'm sure is coming quickly, a television may be equipped with video surveillance capability that can identify eyeballs in real time and decide exactly what animal is viewing what part of the screen and estimate from bloodflow in the face and pupil dilation the extent to which they care and are paying attention, but we're definitely not there yet.
Right now, this is still just snake oil they're selling to ad buyers. Why I get almost all fast food, beer, and insurance ads, even though I don't drink, haven't eaten fast food since 2002, and haven't changed insurance providers since 2008.
The title and subject sound like they are about smart TVs, but the example problems sound like they are about streaming in general, which might be streamed from my cable box, or on my computer monitor. Are the streaming issues really limited to the smart TVs?
There isn't any way to allow certain streaming services via a firewall whitelist, but block all the extraneous connections a TV might make is there? (As the TV manufacturer might use the same CDNs/IP ranges as legitimate services?), ideally without hacking about with the TV itself.
Or would it be best just to never connect the TV to a network and use a computer to access streaming services.
Telescreen and you have to pay for it. "The future is so bright I don't need my eyes to see it."
The cool thing is when you buy it and the manufacturer decides to assault you months down the line with software updates against your will that add malicious advertising and bullshit to your TV.
Love that predatory bullshit, and it keeps on happening with every TV platform.
I told my boomer elders NOT to plug in the smart TV. They just can’t resist the temptation of convenience.
The most frustrating part is that the last time I was able to buy a "regular" tv was 2020
EVERYTHING is a damn smart tv now