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Comment by zbendefy | Hacker News Reader

Hi!

There is this remote camera app for baby cameras and home survelliance cameras, that all of a sudden started displaying ads in the application that lets you access the camera remotely.

Also these ads are full screen, unskippable 5-10 second ads that occasionally have sound as well.

Upon asking about this, the only reaction from them is a canned response telling about some discount, but there was no ad in the product before, they changed the deal afterwards.

Is this the new trend for companies to extract revenue from already sold products?

How is it legal to add ads into an already sold product afterwards?

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How is it legal to add ads into an already sold product afterwards?

I am not a lawyer but I would guess it is probably in an Acceptable Use or Terms of Use page you may have clicked through or maybe there was just a link to it. So it's probably legal but that does not exclude it from being shady, deceptive and crass. If it is not on the outside of the hardware box then maybe there is a case that it was misleading and deceptive since one would have to buy it to know about the Acceptable Use Policy.

Consider asking LegalEagle [1] if he would do a Youtube video on this topic.

Maybe there is a market for a pre-configured Zoneminder [2] RasPi that could optionally use something like tailscale for remote access so people could just buy some cheap onvif compliant cameras and keep their private home security streams private.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle [video channel]

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us20t1gQPOE [video][48 mins][zoneminder how-to]

Same thing happened to me after I started using Facebook. No ads for the first couple years (around 2004). Now there’s an ad every 5 or 10 posts I read

Thats true, but facebook is a free product (in a monetary sense), however these cameras are sold at a price.

Samsung TVs show ads. It is an ever expanding list of companies to avoid.

The worst part is they released an update that added this obnoxious behaviour to TVs that were clean.

TBH their appliances were never good quality compared to locally European or American manufactured ones. They always bet on tech enthusiasm and the short term wooing of the users. Their software is almost always short-term supported and degrade in quality very quickly.

Ahhh, cable television... the early years.

> How is it legal to add ads into an already sold product afterwards?

I assume that, unless they advertised it as being free of advertisements, that there is no conflict with them adding them into the product later. They can make even make an argument that those ads add value: wow, you get to learn about all these cool products that are relevant to you! But in general, I don't believe inserting ads into an existing product is against the law on its face. It's a shitty thing to do though.

Assuming there is no legal issue, the opportunities would be to shame them with publicity like this, or make your opinion clear by reviews. Reviews will forewarn other users and (potentially) sway future behaviour of the product creator.

I got a dumb baby camera from vtech and I love it. The system has it's own wireless channel, no wifi. No 'smart' bullshit. Someone is always going to be somewhere nearby the baby so it doesn't need internet.

VTech stuff has always been awesome. Indestructible, simple, etc. We have a bunch of their stuff.

It's the drug dealer strategy. First hit is free... get em hooked then hit em with the ol' pricing one-two

I absolutely hate that tech has been overrun with these shitstains

Why would it be illegal? Deterrents don’t have to come from the state

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