Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.
Clarification: after a bit of research it seems the olfactory section pertains to CCPA California law, many places have olfactory in the privacy policy because it is required by the law. I can’t believe we reached a point where we have to put olfactory in the privacy policy, but then again it won’t be long before Smell-O-Vision becomes reality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-O-Vision
They removed it, archived here: https://archive.ph/YYBuJ
Also have a California ip you get a different privacy policy.
Roku is, first and foremost, an advertising platform.
My friend uses roku and I found it hilariously dystopian that the screen saver is basically just an artistic side scrolling city scape with billboards that advertise shit shows and movies you can stream or pay for.
Plex/Jellyfin is the only way to go.
When Roku took all four of my set-top roku devices hostage a while back with their forced Terms of Service update, I threw them all in the trash and have warned people against using them since.
Roku is a garbage ad company that will continue to use your devices against you.
We have a roku TV that has no internet connection. It did when we first got it and didn’t play as much attention to this kind if thing. It’s now a dumb TV that’ll never get internet again. We run everything through an rpi4 running osmc.
my roku TV felt my wrath because it dared to show me a banner ad while I was in the middle of a game.
i promptly disabled internet on it completely. now it’s a dumb TV. and my life is much better.
I want to recommend that you change your WiFi password. Even though you disabled the internet, it may still phone home.
oh it’s a relief that we have recently changed it. the bastard roku is completely locked out.
Better yet, tear the wifi antenna off the board, can’t connect to wifi without any antenna, no matter how hard you try.
i’d rather masturbate with a cheese grater than own a “smart” tv….
We’ll have fun all TV’s are smart TVs.
That isn’t true
Samsung QBR line is an example of a dumb tv
i don’t own a tv… just a computer
Ah an even smarter tv than a tv
yeah but i actually control my computer
And more lies we like to tell ourselves
no like i’ve been a computer nerd my whole life and went to college for computer science… and i control my own computer, unlike almost everyone else.
and at least with a pc you can control it… most people don’t
Yep disabled Internet and I cast video from my phone to the TV so I can control what appears on the screen.
“we may collect information about your activities, like the apps you install or access (including usage statistics such as what apps you access, the time you access them, and how long you interact with them), and information about the videos and other content you select and stream within these streaming services.
When you use a smart TV with our operating system (e.g., a Roku TV model) with the Smart TV Experience enabled, we use Automatic Content Recognition (“ACR”) technology to collect information about what you watch or access (e.g., the programs, video games, ads and channels you viewed or accessed, and the date, time and duration of the viewing or access) via your TV’s antenna, cable box, game console, media player or other devices connected to your TV, and we may also collect additional information about the videos and other content you stream. The data collected while the Smart TV Experience is enabled may vary depending on your TV’s model and when you enabled the Smart TV Experience. For information specific to your TV, please see the Privacy > Smart TV Experience section of your TV’s settings menu. If you disable this setting on your TV, Roku will not use ACR on that TV, but Roku still receives information about your interactions and streaming activities on that TV through other methods.
If you use the Roku Media Player to view your video or photo files or listen to your music files, Roku will collect data about the files viewed within the Roku Media Player, such as codecs, and other metadata of the local files you play through the Roku Media Player”
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Alright. I hope they enjoy smelling my dog’s farts all day.
Maybe that’s why they removed it… 🤔
Super weird. I would assume that olfactory sensors would cost more per TV than Roku would make by collecting the data. Afaik there’s no such thing as electronic olfactory sensors per se anyway. In before labs start buying Roku TVs because they all have gas chromatography machines inside them.
It is related to the California Law, there are no sensors in the tv. The strange thing is that they reverted the policy without informing anyone.
https://www.zengrc.com/blog/what-are-the-ccpa-categories-of-personal-information/
Ah. I appreciate the context. Now my confusion is just shifted from Roku to California legislators. I can appreciate future proofing a law, but this seems a bit on the nose.
Also just so you are aware apparently the changes weren’t removed, but only show if you have a US ip. So US have their own privacy policy that differs from the rest of the world. The reason it was included is probably this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-O-Vision.
This is the US policy dated January 2025: https://docs.roku.com/api/v1/published/userprivacypolicy/en/US/text
The rest of the world it is dated 12 December.
They pushed these changes on Christmas Day.
Knowing no one would read it, since they’re with family just trying to watch a lovely Christmas movie. Bastards.
Edit: autocorrect
The new section pertains to the California Law about biometric data collection, it seems they removed it because it was applied worldwide and they didn’t want that. I used a California VPN server and the privacy policy changed for me.
If you buy something nowadays and it connects to the Internet, it’s bad. Treat it like it’s bad. VLAN it, firewall it, force it to use your DNS only and block everything until it breaks then figure out what it actually needs.
Don’t give it internet, return it if it “needs” internet.
What you’re doing is a losing battle; once internet connected everything is normalised they’ll stop working if you block tracking and suddenly you’re the weird one.
Instead, vote with your wallet, talk with others about how annoying/bad this is and get them to vote with their wallets, too!
then figure out what it actually needs.
It needs tracking to work.
Also, I hardly see my non tech relatives following your advice 🤣
I don’t connect my Roku TV to the internet, and always use external devi e via HDMI.
The moose is tightening.
Any recommended firewall block lists (or allow lists) for Roku?
put it on a damn VLAN with no access to the internet. maybe through a whitelisting proxy. otherwise you won’t know if it just evades your measures by using some encrypted tunnel or anything
Can’t even sniff digital panties in the privacy of your own home what is this world coming to?
Probably a catch-all for their next generation of Roku devices they’re developing.
It is definitely a catch all, disclosure of this information is required by California law, that is the only reason they even put it in the policy. They seem to have accidentally released it worldwide, which is why they reverted it, now it only shows if you have a California ip.
