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facepalm: Many Android TV owners report that sponsored ads are shown on their home screen. Google says it's a "driver" to "engage the user community". Most users only want their expensive TV.
Owners of some Android devices, including Sony's smart TVs, Nvidia Shield and Xiaomi Mi Box 3, noticed that ads were appearing on the home screen, according to XDA Developers. The ads seemed to have appeared as a result of an update of Android TV.
The Android TV update has begun to display ads under the heading "Promotional Channels" in the launcher. Not only were users not informed of this change, but there was no way to disable the ads until the user of Reddit Felisens did not understand how to do it . This is essentially to uninstall the updates of the application "Android TV Core Services". This allows you to remove the ads from the Home screen or disable them from the channel setup page. Unfortunately, the ads come back after the TV reboots.
Later, Google sent a response to XDA developers in these terms:
"Android TV is committed to optimizing and personalizing the home entertainment experience .While we are exploring new opportunities to engage the user community, we are running a pilot program to display sponsored content on the Internet." # 39; home screen of Android TV. "
Sony's support page states that the goal is "to help you discover new apps and content for your TV". It also offers you to create a restricted profile with the applications you want to use so that the ads do not appear in the home menu.
While this is understandable because Google's core business is selling ads, it is disconcerting that this appears randomly in Android TV without alerting users beforehand and without a clear way to disable ads. One of the televisions with this update is the Sony 900F, a $ 1,000 TV receiving commercials like it subsidized the cost of the TV.
Sophisticated TechSpot readers will remember that Samsung did something similar in 2015 by also inserting unwanted ads on their smart TVs. Last year, Vizio had to pay $ 2.2 million to surreptitiously track viewers' habits and sell them to advertisers. Vizio does it again today, just let you know now.
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