Samsung, Vizio and Roku smart TVs keep sending ACR data after users opt out

Northeastern University researchers found that smart TVs running Samsung Tizen, Vizio OS and Roku OS continue sending traffic to automatic content recognition endpoints after users disable tracking in settings. The study covered 12 TVs from 10 manufacturers and 5,943 controlled experiments, representing about 95% of US smart TV operating systems.

• Tizen and Vizio OS TVs sent ACR-like traffic in every opted-out scenario tested
• Roku OS did so only in The Roku Channel, which its terms of service disclose
• Traffic to Vizio's Amazon Kinesis endpoint never dropped in any opted-out test
• Encryption prevented researchers from confirming what the traffic contained