Vizio got in trouble with the FTC this week and had to pay $2.2 million to settle charges around having monitored the viewing habits on more than 11 million TVs without consent over the course of two years.
The main problem was that Vizio TVs had tracking features turned on by default, instead of an opt-in setting like many other manufacturers use (and, as you’ll see, sometimes hide or trick you into accepting). Newer Vizio TVs that run the company’s SmartCast system have the tracking turned off by default.
It was a bad practice that people had been complaining about for years — a possible class action lawsuit was even filed in 2016 — but the situation is now a relatively good one for Vizio TV owners: the company is specifically...
via The Verge
