In 2017 the FTC reached a $2.2 million settlement of a complaint initiated by the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General against Vizio, one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of internet-enabled smart televisions. Vizio’s supply operations appear to be even more aggressive than Samsung’s. Investigators discovered that “on a second-by-second basis, Vizio collected a selection of pixels on the screen that it matched to a database of TV, movie, and commercial content.” The company then identified additional viewing data “from cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts.” All of this amounted to as much as 100 billion data points each day just from the 11 million TVs identified in the settlement. Vizio disguised its supply operations behind a setting called “Smart Interactivity,” described to consumers as a feature that “enables program offers and suggestions” without any indication of its actual functions.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 824