I don't think you are understanding how they are identifying content. It doesn't need to playing via the built in 'app'. Basically they are fingerprinting the video feed which passes through the video processors in the TV regardless of the source (internal, external, whatever). This is a video analog of what apps like Shazam do to identify songs. If you are playing content from any source on one of these devices they can detect what the content is and report back on it. About the only way you could avoid this is to never connect the TV to your network, but even that may not be sufficient.

Sure does because there is no difference. It's still watching tv regardless of where the source comes from. People are literally watching or staring at their tvs. That's what watching tv means. It has nothing to do with the source of the content and never did.

samba can use fingerprinting to detect what you are watching, even if you are watching using a roku (and have somehow opted-in to samba on the tv itself). It can even detect games, etc.