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This smart TV giant plans to flood your screen with ads
Roku, notorious for prioritizing ads over hardware (and user experience), is pursuing a patent to expand its ad reach beyond its own platform. The patent, titled "HDMI Customized Ad Insertion," reveals a disturbing push by one of the biggest names in set-top box hardware to display ads on external devices such as game consoles or DVD players.
The patent outlines a dystopian scenario where interruptions in media playback trigger potentially intrusive ad placements think of your wedding reception being hijacked by a champagne ad. To do this, Roku plans to leverage rich user data collected from smart TVs, as well as its ability to identify the content being played through Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology.
While the patent is not yet implemented and may never be, Roku's vision for the future encroaches on personal space and represents a troubling trend of prioritizing profit over user experience and privacy. Will ad blockers be able to stop the onslaught of these ads?
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