


Still, cutting off one source of information you don’t want to share is surprisingly easy.On the eve of Black Friday this year, the FBI field office in Oregon sent out a post to consumers warning them about all those smart TVs that would soon be going on sale. Your streaming stick or cable box might also track what you watch and do, and services like Netflix also see what you watch the most. The important thing to remember is that turning these features off won’t completely eliminate user tracking. Myriad other TVs including those from Vizio, TCL, and others have similar options in their settings menus it’s just a matter of finding them. Flip the switch from on to off, and you’ll be set. To disable this, you’ll need to navigate to System Preferences and then go to Samba Interactive TV. From the Settings menu, navigate to Terms & Policies, and then turn off both the Viewing Information Services option and Internet Based Advertisements.įinally, Sony’s Bravia TVs refer to content tracking technology as Samba Interactive TV.
#Samba interactive tv sony disable software
If you’ve got a Samsung TV, the process and name of the software is a bit different. You can disable it by simply navigating to the section and ticking the slider to the off position.Ībove Live Plus, you’ll see something called Advertisement: Click that and turn that off to disable personalized ads. On my LG, the option is called Live Plus, and is found in the General section of the settings menu.

They also put them in different places in their TVs’ settings menus. Like everything TV related, each company has its own name for the ACR setting. You’ll still be able to use the TV as normal - you just won’t get all of the “smart” options they come with.Īnd before you start fiddling with your TV's settings, you always have the option to just disconnect your television from the internet if you don’t want it to send any of your data out. In addition to sucking up your viewing information, some TVs will give you the option to turn personalized advertisements on or off.īefore we get to turning these “features” off, it’s important to note that doing so can shut down some of your TV’s capabilities, such as recommended shows and the like. Basically, anything that you’re watching content on. The information ACR grabs can come from virtually anything you connect to your TV, whether that’s via your Roku, a Blu-Ray, over the air, or through a game console.

Its main purposes are to recommend shows based on what you’ve watched, and, naturally, help TV makers serve you ads. That’s how they see what you’re watching, when, and how long you’ve watched it for. Most smart TVs today use a technology called automated content recognition or ACR. Thankfully, if you don’t feel like letting a Samsung, LG, or Sony TV set know that you’ve binged 20 hours of “Love Island” in a single weekend, you can turn off such trackers. The other half of that reason? To sell ads, of course! That’s right, those ads on your smart TV’s menus are likely targeted based on data your TV has collected about your watching habits. The reason? Partly to improve your user experience and build out better features.
