By Julia Angwin,聽ProPublica
TV makers are constantly crowing about the tricks their smart TVs can do. But one of the most popular brands has a feature that it鈥檚 not advertising: Vizio鈥檚 Smart TVs track your viewing habits and share it with advertisers, who can then find you on your phone and other devices.
The tracking 鈥� which Vizio calls 鈥淪mart Interactivity鈥� 鈥� is turned on by default for the more than 10 million Smart TVs that the company has sold. Customers who want to escape it have to opt-out.
In a statement, Vizio said customers鈥� 鈥渘on-personal identifiable information may be shared with select partners 鈥� to permit these companies to make, for example, better-informed decisions regarding content production, programming and advertising.鈥�
Vizio鈥檚 actions appear to go beyond what others are doing in the emerging interactive television industry. Vizio rivals Samsung and LG Electronics only track users鈥� viewing habits if customers choose to turn the feature on. And unlike Vizio, they don鈥檛 appear to provide the information in a form that allows advertisers to reach users on other devices.
Vizio鈥檚 technology works by analyzing snippets of the shows you鈥檙e watching, whether on traditional television or streaming Internet services such as Netflix. Vizio determines the date, time, channel of programs 鈥� as well as whether you watched them live or recorded. The viewing patterns are then connected your IP address 鈥� the Internet address that can be used to identify every device in a home, from your TV to a phone.
IP addresses can increasingly be linked to individuals. Data broker Experian, for instance, offers a 鈥渄ata enrichment鈥� service that provide 鈥渉undreds of attributes鈥� such as age, profession and 鈥渨ealth indicators鈥� tied to a particular IP address.
Vizio recently updated its privacy policy to say it has begun providing data about customers鈥� viewing habits to companies that 鈥渕ay combine this information with other information about devices associated with that IP address.鈥� The company does not promise to encrypt IP addresses before sharing them.
Cable TV companies and video rental companies are prohibited by law from selling information about the viewing habits of their customers. However, Vizio says that those laws 鈥� the Video Privacy Protection Act and cable subscriber protections 鈥� don鈥檛 apply to its business.
Vizio hopes its new tracking forays will provide a boost to the thin profit margins it earns in the competitive television manufacturing business. In an October filing for an initial public offering, Vizio touted its ability to provide 鈥渉ighly specific viewing behavior data on a massive scale with great accuracy.鈥�
The company said in its filing that revenues from its viewing data business are not yet significant. But people familiar with the company said that Vizio has begun working to combine its viewing data with information about users that it gets from data broker Neustar.
Neustar declined to comment about the relationship, but said the company does not handle or distribute viewing information about Vizio users.
A spokeswoman for Tapad, a company that helps identify users across their many devices, said that its contracts prevent it from sharing the name of the companies it works with.
An Experian spokeswoman said, 鈥淲e currently do not have a relationship with Vizio.鈥�
