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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

> as well as Apple who own the hardware and are feeding telemetry data into your ad profile on their system.

Are they, though? Is Apple snooping into the Netflix app’s data to track what you’re watching and phone home with that info? Are there studies showing that happening? Are they selling that data to third parties like the TV manufacturers are?

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You seem to be missing a major point. You have signed up to streaming services and they are 100% selling your data and viewing habits to 3rd parties to build ad and tracking profiles. How come you are happy for Disney and Netflix to do this but not Samsung or Sony?

As far is Apple is concerned, they have been caught lying about this many times before. I jujst cant get my head around why any person can trust a billion dollar corporation to be 'good'.

Here have a few links:

https://www.bgr.com/2107512/how-to-prevent-apple-tv-spying-a...

https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-whe...

https://linustechtips.com/topic/1467686-apple-caught-ignorin...

https://medium.com/@michaelswengel/yes-your-mac-is-watching-...

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/11/12/apple-getting-sue...

It's possible this is a distinction without a difference, but Disney and Netflix provide a service and the data they are selling is integral* to providing that service, meaning they're going to have that data regardless. If you're okay with anyone selling any of your data, it probably makes sense for Netflix to sell data about what you watch on Netflix.

Samsung or Sony sell a physical product that does not need internet connectivity, or microphones, or telemetry, or any of that. They jam that stuff in there to increase profits and make it economically infeasible to sell what I think 80% of people on HN would buy if given the opportunity - a large flatscreen TV with no built-in connectivity whatsoever. So anything I can do to make me less profitable to them, I will do.

* For certain definitions, anyway.

This is obviously the line where we disagree, and thats fine. You are arguing that you are happy to give your data to a company if its integral to the service they provide. My opinion is that if you are giving your data to one billion dollar company that is building an ad profile and selling it to 3rd parties, then why have scruples about giving it to another? The ad companies are getting your data one way or another, cherry picking a single device on your home network to ringfence against that seems crazy in my opinion.

The issue is the kind of data, no?

I also dislike that my data is being transacted willy-nilly by content providers, it's a very different ballpark when TVs have hidden microphones recording my house, screen capturing if I'm showing personal photos on the screen, and sending that data to the manufacturer. That's a much worse privacy invasion.

This is the problem. You've read the headlines but havent examined the evidence. Go watch the Gamers Nexus documentary on it, and bring yourself up to speed on exactly what tracking the TVs are doing.

That's exactly what I'm saying?

If you watch Top Gear, do you think it's fine for your data to go to Raytheon? Alcoa? Goldman Sachs? Saudi Aramco?

Netflix has to know what you're watching in order to show it to you. Sony doesn't have to know what you're watching to render HDMI output. All companies are not created equal in every single transaction.

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