FTC slams Vizio with fat fine for spying on 11 million TV viewers

“In addition, VIZIO facilitated appending specific demographic information to the viewing data, such as sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education level, home ownership, and household value,” the FTC said. “VIZIO sold this information to third parties, who used it for various purposes, including targeting advertising to consumers across devices, according to the complaint.”

As part of the settlement, Vizio is no longer allowed to collect data without user authorization. Vizio also has to “prominently disclose their data collection and sharing practices” when it gets permission from users and has to delete everything that it has already stored. The FTC said Vizio also has to create a new privacy program.

Vizio isn’t the only company accused of collecting user data. Samsung came under similar scrutiny recently after it was discovered that its TVs were listening in on users.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2017/02/06/ftc-fines-vizio-spying-tvs/