The biggest story in the tech world today is the revelation that Samsung’s Smart TV can and will listen to your conversations, and will share the details with a third party. Yes, you read that right. Here’s the actual language from the privacy policy itself:
“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”
Naturally, this has freaked people out and led to multiple comparisons to 1984 and the ubiquitous Big Brother. It was framed exceptionally well by EFF activist Parker Higgins in the following tweet:
Left: Samsung SmartTV privacy policy, warning users not to discuss personal info in front of their TV Right: 1984 pic.twitter.com/osywjYKV3W
— Parker Higgins (@xor) February 8, 2015
While the privacy policy statement is disturbing in its own right, the extent of how creepy it is has to do with the fact that this information will be shared with a “third party.” This begs the question, who is this third party? Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has some thoughts. From the Daily Beast:
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