Vizio Smart TVs Are Watching You Back Even Harder Than Most

Most smart TVs watch you back, to some extent. There’s money — a lot of money — to be had in user data, and advertising makes the world go ’round. Even accepting that, though, there are limits on what one generally should and should not have to expect when it comes to privacy-invading televisions, and new reports indicate that one manufacturer has gone well past that line.

Our colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports explained earlier this year how Samsung, Vizio, and LG all work with third-party companies to capture user data and better target advertising. But Vizio goes farther than the competition, ProPublica has found, and not in a good way.

For starters, Vizio models ship with tracking turned on by default, where other brands let you opt-in, ProPublica reports. And not only that, but Vizio’s data connects to far more third-party sources than the other brands do.

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