Your smart TV is a portal for convenient and seemingly endless entertainment. You can watch your favorite shows and movies, play video games online or via a connected gaming console, and set up music, workstation, and fitness routines.
With all that accessibility and functionality, however, comes plenty of risk. The more you use your TV to enjoy media and support your day, the more data is created. Spyware and tracking is increasingly savvy, and smart TVs are set up to learn as much about you as possible. Here's how to protect yourself against the increasing threat.
Turn off tracking and viewing data collection
Don't let your TV follow your habits
The first thing you should do is check all your privacy and tracking settings to turn everything that is optional off immediately. There are likely a few different means your smart TV is collecting your viewing data and entertainment interests, and they aren't always easy to find or understand. Check the settings under the General or Privacy tab for options and go entry by entry and read in detail everything you find. Your TV is going to try to confuse you into thinking these settings are both necessary and innocuous. They are not.
An important tracking feature to turn off is called Automated Content Recognition. This is the process by which your TV identifies what you are watching, and for how long. It uses cues to…