Vizio: the spy behind your screen

Got an Internet-connected Vizio TV?

Smile, you’re on Candid Camera. And in marketing databases everywhere.

The FTC says:

Consumers have bought more than 11 million internet-connected Vizio televisions since 2010. But according to a complaint filed by the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General, consumers didn’t know that while they were watching their TVs, Vizio was watching them. The lawsuit challenges the company’s tracking practices and offers insights into how established consumer protection principles apply to smart technology.

Starting in 2014, Vizio made TVs that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers. Vizio even retrofitted older models by installing its tracking software remotely. All of this, the FTC and AG allege, was done without clearly telling consumers or getting their consent.

What did Vizio know about what was going on in the privacy of consumers’ homes? On a second-by-second basis, Vizio collected a selection of pixels on the screen that it matched to a database of TV, movie, and commercial content. What’s more, Vizio identified viewing data from cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts. Add it all up and Vizio captured as many as 100 billion data points each day from millions of TVs.

Vizio then turned that mountain of data into cash by selling consumers’ viewing histories to advertisers and others. And let’s be clear: We’re not talking about summary information about national viewing trends. According to the complaint, Vizio got personal. The company provided consumers’ IP addresses to data aggregators, who then matched the address with an individual consumer or household. Vizio’s contracts with third parties prohibited the re-identification of consumers and households by name, but allowed a host of other personal details – for example, sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, and home ownership. And Vizio permitted these companies to track and target its consumers across devices.

That’s what Vizio was up to behind the screen, but what was the company telling consumers? Not much, according to the complaint.

And while all this is expressed as a “complaint,” and therefore unsubstantiated, Vizio has agreed to pay some big bux to the State of New Jersey (and can other states be far behind?).

Now, a number of thoughts occurred to me as I read the FTC article.

• Any TV owner who didn’t at least suspect this was going on is amazingly naive. But yes, Vizio should have been upfront about it anyhow.
• Why is it verboten for Vizio to do such a thing when heaven knows how many government agencies spy on our more personal activities every day without any such accountability or responsibility? Oh yeah, because Vizio’s doing it for money while the NSA et al. are doing it because we’re all criminal suspects. That makes it so much better. Ah, the joys of “freedom” as defined by governments in the 21st century.
• Why is the settlement money going to some state? The government of New Jersey isn’t the injured party. Why isn’t Vizio, say, giving new TVs to all its abused customers?
• Despite both the settlement and Vizio forbidding its Big Data customers (you didn’t really think you, the TV buyer, were the customer, did you?) the “re-identification of consumers and households by name” (whatever that means), that data is out there forever. Identifying you and your habits down to household level.
• The saying used to be “if it’s free, you’re not the customer; you’re the product.” These days it seems that you’re the product and you pay. Such a deal!
• How many other TV manufacturers (and DVD/Blu-ray makers and smart device sellers) are doing exactly the same thing?
• Companies should not only have to get your explicit opt-in before gathering data on you; they should also offer you a cut of their income on that data. This is such a simple, obvious principle; why is nobody operating this way? Okay, partly because it’s complicated. But with micropay systems increasingly available, it’s not that complicated. The real reason is that the companies we deal with don’t give a flying f*ck about their customers, and in this they are, I suspect, inspired by surveillance states everywhere.

Welcome to the new normal. Vizio pays New Jersey today, but tomorrow everybody simply hides some fuzzy little statement at the bottom of their fine print and everything that was once evil becomes magically acceptable.