It instructs users to press the “Menu” button on their remote or open their HDTV Settings app, navigate to “system,” then select
“Reset & Admin.” After highlighting “Smart Interactivity,” they can press the “Right” arrow and change the setting to “Off.”
The company, based on a stipulated order, must delete data collected before March 1, 2016 — before it sent the pop-up on data collection —
and “prominently disclose and obtain affirmative express consent for its data collection and sharing practices.”
In an email responding to questions from , Vizio said
that it had a new, prominent opt-in notice sharing information about the collection of its viewing data, and that “only users which ‘accept’ ACR data collection will be enrolled in ACR data collection.”
It’s also worth noting that this order is separate from a class-action lawsuit
Vizio is fighting in California around the tracking software in its TVs.
But the agencies’ complaint noted that Vizio provided IP addresses to data aggregators
that would remove a person’s name, but still match the TV viewing habits to other personal information like “sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, homeownership and household value.”
Vizio, which filed for an initial public offering in 2015
that did not happen, said at that time, it collected “up to 100 billion anonymized viewing data points each day” from its TVs.
The complaint says that Vizio has manufactured TVs since at least February 2014 with software turned on by default
that collects “information about what a consumer is watching on a second-by-second basis.” It also was said to have remotely installed the software, a proprietary form of automated content recognition, or ACR, software, onto TVs sold without it.