Samsung Smart TVs Inserting Unwanted Ads Into Users’ Locally-Stored Content

When it comes to smart TVs, Samsung has not had a good week. The company recently came under fire over a poorly worded privacy policy which they have since amended, but now according to reports, Samsung is in more hot water again and this time it is over unwanted ads being inserted inside the user’s locally-stored content.

Yes, this means that if you’re using a Samsung Smart TV and you’re watching a show stored locally, you will get ads inserted into your shows which kind of defeats the point, don’t you think? Reports claims that users using apps such as Plex and Foxtel (in Australia) are discovering that ads are popping into their content every 15-30 minutes.

According to one user who wrote on the Foxtel support forums, “After about 15 minutes of watching live TV, the screen goes blank, and then a 16:9 sized Pepsi ads (taking up about half the screen) pops up. It’s as if there is a popup ad on the TV.” This isn’t the first time Samsung has come under fire for unwanted ads.

Last year tech writer David Chartier posted what appeared to be popup ads for a “Yahoo Broadcast Interactivity” app appearing on his TV. Samsung at that time explained that the ads were meant to be opt-in only and were working with Yahoo to address it. Samsung has yet to address these complaints but users on Reddit have started to advise each other to uncheck the company’s privacy notice which should disable these ads.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Samsung