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Ad-free doesn't necessarily mean they aren't tracking you, right? Viewership info is _still_ valuable, even if it's not being used right on the device.

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Yes I suppose that's true. Tracking can at least be defeated by simply not connecting to the internet.

Some TVs with ads actually have ads pre-loaded on them, so not connecting them isn't sufficient to defeat the ads.

This is until they start using 5G or LoRa to make a mesh to get around that.

Amazon's Smarthome stuff offers basically a bluetooth side-channel specifically for this purpose. It's called "Amazon Sidewalk", and they are already using it for Tile trackers, Ring Doorbell stuff (the doorbell even acts as a mesh point for this in some models)

Yep, eventually this technology will be worthwhile for folks with less scale to implement. Maybe Amazon will license access to Sidewalk. I believe Apple does a similar thing with their devices.

Under "Opt-out of Suggested Content" its "No" for the Vizio TVs. Either its generic Ads, or they're watching you to target the Ads.

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