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Comment by jtreitz | Hacker News Reader

My Samsung TV which I bought 8 years ago now suddenly asks me if it's okay they share data with their over 200 partners. They have the nerves to headline this with "protect your privacy". Generally not a big fan of EU policing but I wish somebody sued them over this.

> Improving Your Experience and Protecting Your Privacy on Samsung TV Plus

> Samsung and our 264 partners use information about you and your device in order to provide, analyse and improve the Samsung TV Plus app. This includes the processing of personal data such as unique IDs for personalised advertising.

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If I got a dollar for every person suckered into buying Samsung products…

But to stay on topic: never! connect your tv to the internet. My LG has been offline for around 5 years now after automatically installing unwanted apps. Since then, I run everything via an Apple TV 4K which works way better than LGs own software does anyway.

Putting on tinfoil hat... how do we know it isn't connecting to our neighbors' open WiFi?

Do your neighbors have open Wi-Fi? I'm a country dweller, but when I'm in town I look at the Wi-Fi list (in horror) sometimes, and it's really rare to see an open Wi-Fi network.

Anecdotal but my laptop just found 2 open WiFi networks out of 20. One's enough though.

Are they truly open, or are they captive portals? Of course, it might be possible to exfiltrate data through a captive portal network, depending on how they implement the portal.

It’s a common fear. People constantly mention it on HN every time the advice to keep a TV off the internet is mentioned. Yet we have never seen proof by anyone, not once, that it has happened. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

That would be a lawsuit waiting.

Can a screen/monitor/TV send data back over HDMI through a connected computer or is that a 1 way connection?

Technically yes, hdmi supports transmitting Ethernet. Realistically no.

Exact same setup here. Ideally I'd buy a dumb TV but they don't exist in the modern era.

I threw out a Samsung TV after they kept asking this shit. They'd provided a single button to accept but literally 200+ decline buttons, one for every partner, that I needed to scroll through a click with my remote. Fuck Samsung. Will never buy any Samsung product ever again.

> asks me if it's okay they share data with their over 200 partners. L

What happens if you say no?

If you manage to click through all >200 partners to say no, the TV startup will be significantly faster. Like 10x faster.

Cutting them off the wire and view through another dongle is easier though

Sounds like we need an app for that clicking.

Or maybe an extra smart remote.

How about open source firmware to replace the crap Samsung bundles?

Do you have a better system fix than what EU is trying to do?

There would be a few fixes, if the politics would be interested in actually fixing this loophole.

- deny is the default: one button to deny everything but one accept button for every partner

- respect DO NOT TRACK, and force software/hardware providers to enable it by default

- making payments for non-tracking illegal

- remove or rephrase "legitimate interest" ruling, because providers use that as an excuse to enable everything

- and probably: prohibit any other dark pattern, or at least make it extremely hard to implement

> - deny is the default: one button to deny everything but one accept button for every partner

Yes, that's in the law. I you do not click on consent, the default is deny everything, and a button to refuse everything should be easy to access.

> - making payments for non-tracking illegal

In the law too.

> - remove or rephrase "legitimate interest" ruling, because providers use that as an excuse to enable everything

True, this loophole was introduced by UK/US lobbyists at the time if I remember correctly. My (very small, 3 dev) company at the time worked on health data and managed to find itself in the arcanes of Brussels because anything related to PII security was good news for us.

- and probably: prohibit any other dark pattern, or at least make it extremely hard to implement

This is the courts who can judge that.

The main issue with the gdpr law is local enforcement. It is honestly well written and easy to understand, which is why you have so much legal loopholes, but EU courts are RAI rather than RAW (our fast americanisation is changing that though).

> and a button to refuse everything should be easy to access.

Part of the problem with this is the website operators who maliciously interpret this to mean "also refuse the cookie that says what I selected", so you have to select it every time you visit. (I even hit a site a few weeks ago that required it on every page when I refused.)

Respecting Do Not Track is the most important thing here. They absolutely could have forced all browser vendors to implement that feature, and force website owners to honor it. Instead, we got cookie banners.

> deny is the default

Article 6 and 7 of the GDPR

> respect DO NOT TRACK, and force software/hardware providers to enable it by default

There is other software and other areas of human activity than just cookies and browsers.

Also, with "deny is default" you shouldn't really nead the DNT. But tell that to the ad/tracking industry

> making payments for non-tracking illegal

Generally derived from GDPR. See e.g. recital 43 https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/

> remove or rephrase "legitimate interest" ruling, because providers use that as an excuse to enable everything

It's there because actual legitimate activities like security audits or fraud detection would not be possible.

EU expects companies to act as adults, but here we are.

> prohibit any other dark pattern, or at least make it extremely hard to implement

This cannot be properly specified. And existing laws and regulations already cover that.

See the article we're commenting under. And noyb's previous cases: https://noyb.eu/en/where-did-all-reject-buttons-come

> making payments for non-tracking illegal

This keeps surfacing in discussions about tracking. I'm wondering how do you propose for b2c software companies to make money if they can't either properly advertise or require you to pay to opt-out? Is this just an entitled leftie thing ("Elon Musk should pay for my Instagram!") or is there a genuine though-out plan for another reasonable business model?

I would have them make money by selling me products, rather than selling me as a product.

How is "Payed subscriptions tier without tracking" not a product? Isn't it exactly what Instagram offers in Europe?

> I'm wondering how do you propose for b2c software companies to make money if they can't either properly advertise

Advertising does not require invasive and pervasive tracking. There's no world in which a b2c company needs my precise geo location for 12 years: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1817122117093056541

Why the hell are people defending 24/7 monitoring at scale that would make even Stasi or Stalin pause and think "are we going too far?"? 1984 wasn't an instruction manual.

> Advertising does not require invasive and pervasive tracking.

Why are you so opposed to pay for a tier without tracking? I'm still not following.

> Why the hell are people defending 24/7 monitoring at scale that would make even Stasi or Stalin pause and think "are we going too far?"? 1984 wasn't an instruction manual.

Stasi or KGB weren't "opt in" for their citizens while social networks definitely are. For example, Twitter won't allow me to access the images in the post you linked because I deleted my account as soon as Musk completely enshittified it and I'm doing just fine without it.

> Why are you so opposed to pay for a tier without tracking? I'm still not following.

Because advertising does not require invasive and pervasive tracking.

The better question is: why are you so happy defending 24/7 surveillance of everything you do?

> Stasi or KGB weren't "opt in" for their citizens

What you're proposing isn't opt in either. You're proposing "pervasive and invasive tracking, or pay an arbitrary sum randomly defined by the tracking industry". That is, literally pay for access to internet without tracking, or else. All based on a completely unproven assumption that tracking is required for ads to function. It's not.

> while social networks definitely are.

Indeed. Because tracking is happening only on social networks.

> For example, Twitter won't allow me to access the images

Here's a direct link. And no, this pop up wasn't on an "opt out social network". It was on a random site (can't remember now which one): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GTe23o5WwAACyNJ?format=png&name=...

> Because advertising does not require invasive and pervasive tracking.

Okay, so just ignore tracking-advertisement supported option and sign up for payed account. What is your issue with this again?

> What you're proposing isn't opt in either. You're proposing "pervasive and invasive tracking, or pay an arbitrary sum randomly defined by the tracking industry". That is, literally pay for access to internet without tracking, or else.

This is incorrect. GDPR already forbids tracking without consent, so services you didn't sign up for (the whole internet) can't legally track you. Obviously, then everything would cost you actual money not just social networks.

> Here's a direct link. And no, this pop up wasn't on an "opt out social network". It was on a random site (can't remember now which one): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GTe23o5WwAACyNJ?format=png&name=...

This has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. GDPR already forbids random sites and ad networks from tracking you without your explicit consent.

> Okay, so just ignore tracking-advertisement supported option and sign up for payed account. What is your issue with this again?

Somehow the only option you propose and defend is: "pay, or be tracked".

Why would I want a world where the only way not to be tracked is to pay?

Moreover, your whole premise is based on the completely unsubstantiated claim that tracking is required for advertisment and for the poor hapless b2c companies.

> This has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. GDPR already forbids random sites and ad networks from tracking you without your explicit consent.

You're literally saying that in your vision you are either tracked, or have to pay for access.

Besides paying or accepting being tracked you also have the option of not using web services that require that. Some things you can self-host (email, Mastodon instance, etc), others are sponsored (HN). I still don't get why you expect to dictate to businesses how to price their products - voting with your wallet has always been the way to express your disagreement, not "EU mAkE eViL Zuck serVE mE fOr fRee!!!11".

> Besides paying or accepting being tracked you also have the option of not using web services that require that.

Which is 90% of modern internet

> I still don't get why you expect to dictate to businesses how to price their products

I still don't understand why you keep defending pervasive and invasive tracking of everything you do 24/7 across every site, and device, and service you visit or use even in passing.

> voting with your wallet has always been the way to express your disagreement

No. It has rarely worked. Especially in the face of supranational corporations, and thousands of data brokers.

I mean, the top comment to the news is this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49106733 about a TV that the person already buys with their money, and that still tracks and sells their data to over 200 "partners". And every TV you can buy at the store these days does that. How can I "vote with my wallet"?

Or do you think fifa.com (referenced in the article under which we discuss this) needs money to run their site? FIFA has a revenue of $15 billion dollars from the World Cup alone: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/18/fifa-record... And yet: https://www.fifa.com/ads.txt

> EU mAkE eViL Zuck serVE mE fOr fRee!!!11

Literally no one is saying that. You are the only one pretending that invasive and pervasive tracking is the only way to serve ads or sponsor content and sites.

So, tell me, why is it you are defending tracking so much?

> entitled leftie thing ("Elon Musk should pay for my Instagram!")

At least ever since Musk syphoned billions of dollars from the government, then illegally intervened in elections at home and abroad, then went on to destroy USAID, then went after pension funds I believe it would be just fair if he was made to pay personally for some expenses of private people, yes. You don't have to be particularly left to find that.

People aren’t rational. They want to have less regulations so there’s more freedom to do what you want and then in the same sentence complain about enshittification.

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