In a bid to better understand their customers, users, or visitors to a website, tracking tools are implemented so that websites and services can provide better recommendations, or in some cases provide more targeted ads. No one really enjoys being tracked and if you are a Roku TV owner, this is something you’ll want to take note of.
The company has recently announced (via TechCrunch) that they are rolling out a software update for Roku TV owners in which one of the features will be able to know what you’re watching, and based on that it will be able to make users recommendations on other shows that they might be interested in.
However before you get too alarmed, note that this is an opt-in feature, meaning that you will need to turn this on manually, as opposed to an opt-out situation where the feature is enabled by default and users will have to turn it off. Also it should be pointed out that this only works when you’re watching through a digital antenna or cable box, so it’s not as if Roku has a microphone in your home and is listening to you all the time.
We know that there is a bit of controversy surrounding this kind of tracking, as we have seen in the past where Vizio got into trouble for tracking its customers via their TVs.