Disabling TV tracking worked on some sets, but varied by brand

Northeastern University researchers found that turning off automatic content recognition, or ACR, stopped most tested TVs from sending tracking data, but results varied by brand and operating system. The study matters because ACR can identify what people watch and support recommendations, viewing metrics and targeted advertising.

The team monitored network traffic from 12 TVs made by 10 manufacturers while content played through streaming services, HDMI, antenna and screen mirroring. Opting out stopped suspected ACR traffic on several systems, including LG, Fire TV, Vidaa and one Sony Google TV; Samsung and Roku continued some activity, while Vizio showed no apparent response to the opt-out. The researchers also found that tracking varied by input: all TVs with ACR-related traffic scanned antenna broadcasts, while third-party apps such as Netflix and YouTube generally showed no ACR activity.