Released: January 26, 2021

Why your TV spies on you

Source: Shira Ovide - N.Y. Times (Paid Registration)

Popular brands of TV sets keep track of what we’re watching and report it to companies that want to sell us new cars or credit cards. (Yeah, it’s gross.) One reason they do it is that selling personal information is pure profit, whereas selling you a TV set is definitely not. Roku also makes its real money not from selling its gizmos that connect our TVs to streaming apps, but from its side gigs including its troves of information about what we watch that it uses to sell ads.

You can think of these consumer electronics companies as basically Facebook that happens to sell us the screens, too. I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel less affectionate about my marathon sessions of “Cobra Kai.”

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