Smart TV Maker Vizio Will Pay $2.2 M To Settle Charges It Collected Viewer Info

Smart TV maker Vizio will pay $2.2 million as part of a settlement for charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the New Jersey Attorney General that the company installed software on its TVs to collect viewing data on 11 million consumers without their consent or knowledge.

According to the FTC, Vizio has to delete any data collected before March 1, 2016, and has to implement a comprehensive data privacy program.

FTC senior attorney Lesley Fair wrote in a blog post that Vizio began making TVs in 2014 that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers. Fair writes that Vizio also installed the tracking software on older models remotely.

Authorities allege that Vizio failed to inform consumers that a “Smart Interactivity” feature that “enables program offers and suggestions” also enabled the collection of consumers' viewing data.

"Vizio then turned that mountain of data into cash by selling consumers’ viewing histories to advertisers and others. And let’s be clear: We’re not talking about summary information about national viewing trends," Fair wrote.

"According to the complaint, Vizio got personal. The company provided consumers’ IP addresses to data aggregators, who then matched the address with an individual consumer or household. Vizio’s contracts with third parties prohibited the re-identification of consumers and households by name, but allowed a host of other personal details – for example, sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, and home ownership. And Vizio permitted these companies to track and target its consumers across devices."

Vizio will pay $1.5 million to the FTC and $1 million to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, with $300,000 of that amount suspended.

"Going forward, this resolution sets a new standard for best industry privacy practices for the collection and analysis of data collected from today's internet-connected televisions and other home devices," Jerry Huang, Vizio general counsel, said in a statement to CNET.

Vizio also said that even before the settlement was announced, it had addressed the concerns by updating online and onscreen disclosures.

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