Posted by tortilla 12/16/2025
Another approach is to disallow all DNS or only allow *.netflix.com for the TV. In my experience attempting to only allow certain domains is a game of whackamole where everyone in the house complains their stuff is broken because it needs undocumentedrandomdomain.com.
...not to mention that apps have random third party SDKs that are required, and might not work if you block those domains. A/B testing/feature flags SDKs, and DRMs (for provisioning keys) come to mind.
I used to have a Roku TV, plus a a few of the standalone Roku Ultras for my other (non-Roku) TVs. I got a full page advert when I started up the TV one day and started the process of replacing them all (I think it is when Roku were experimenting with that).
Over about a year I replaced them with Apple TVs* and the user experience is far better, plus the amount of tracking domains reported by Pi-hole dropped precipitously! The TVs don't have internet access at all, they are just driven via the HDMI port now.
* I replaced the Ultras first, and when the Roku TV eventually started acting laggy on the apps I replaced the Roku TV as well.
The market probably isn’t big enough yet, but I’ll bet it grows. I mean _Texas_ is bringing it up!
Secret? There's T's&C's that people agree to when starting up their TV that tells them.
That doesn't make it right of course and it shouldn't just be opt-in, it should be banned entirely. If you want to analyse my viewing behaviour, pay me.
I generally agree that reading the T&C is on the user and you cannot blame the lack if transparency onto the company, IF the T&C are sufficiently comprehensible. Some T&Cs I‘ve read are written in obscure enough legalese that it might as well be considered hidden information
But yes.
It's ironic that Sony as a media producer and TV maker could be streaming copyrighted images for an algorithm to use.
Could this be used as an example from AI companies on the use of copyrighted images for training data?
“X + 1”
I hope they’re enjoying the video footage.